/     ' 


GROWTH  IN  HOLINESS; 


OR,    THE 


'ywpe**  <tf  tf{*  $IW^1|i|[** 


BY 

FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER,  D.D., 

Author  of  "All  for  Jesus,"  Etc.,  Etc. 


Occurramus  omnes  in  unitatem  fidei,  et  agnitionis 
Filii  Dei,  in  virum  perfectuui,  in  mensurani,  setatia 
»)l(.'iiitii(linis  Cluisti. 

Veritatem  facientes  in  charitate,  crescamus  in  illo 
per  omnia,  qui  est  caput,  Christus.— ad  epuesios. 


With  the  Approbation  of  the  Most  Rev,  Archbishop  of  Baltimore. 


JOHN   MURPHY   COMPANY, 
Publishers. 

BALTIMORE,  MD. :  NEW  YORK : 

44  W.  Baltimore  Street.  70  Fifth  Avenue. 


6X2^ 


TO 

MY   BLESSED  PRINCE  AND  PATBON. 

SAINT  RAPHAEL, 

ONE  OF  THE  SEVEN  WHO  STAND  ALWAYS  BEFORE  GO£ 

GLORIOUS,    BENIGNANT,    BEAUTIFUL, 

THE  FIGURE  OF  HIS  PROVIDENCE, 

PHYSICIAN,  GUIDE,  AND  JOY  OF  SOULS, 

COMPANION    OF    WAYFARING    MORTALS, 

AND  ANGEL  OF  THEIR  VICISSITUDES, 

BT  WHOM 

THE  TENDERNESS  OF  THE  FATHER,  THE  HEALING  OF  IIIJs.  SO^ 

AND  THE  GLADNESS  OF  THE   HOLY  GHOST, 

ARE  MINISTERED  TO  WANDERING  MEN 

WITH  THE  EFFICACIOUS  POWER  OF  AN  ANGELIC  SPIRI1 

AND  THE  COMPASSIONATE.  PATHETIC  LOVE 

OF  A  KINDLY  HUMAN  HEART. 


fiiE  Oratory.    IiOMDom, 
Fkast  of  St.  Ra*<uxl. 

MDCCOLV 


(*> 


NteiiiBO 


PREFATORY  EPISTLE 


REV.   WILLIAM  ANTONY  HUTCHISON 


PRIEST  OP  THE  LONDON  ORATORY. 


My  dear  Father  Antony, 

In  a  walk  by  the  sea-shore  at  Lancing  four  years  ago,  1  gave 
some  reasons  why  I  should  not  publish  anything  on  the  spiri- 
tual life  until  a  given  date.  That  date  is  past,  and  here  is  my 
book.  I  have  little  to  say  in  the  way  of  preface,  and  that  little 
shall  be  in  the  shape  of  a  letter  to  you,  because  it  will  be  a 
memento  of  our  mutual  affection  which  will  give  both  of  us 
pleasure;  for  it  will  recall  the  eventful  nine  years  which  we 
have  now  spent  together,  and  which  it  has  pleased  God  should 
be  equal  to  a  long  life  for  their  various  trials  and  almost  roman- 
tic vicissitudes. 

There  are  two  objects  for  which  books  may  be  written,  and 
which  must  materially  affect  their  style.  One  is  to  produce  a 
oertain  impression  on  the  reader  while  he  reads :  the  other,  to 
put  before  him  things  to  remember,  and  in  such  a  way  as  he 
will  best  remember  them.  The  present  work  is  written  for  the 
latter  object,  and  consequently  with  as  much  brevity  as  clear- 
ness would  allow,  and  as  much  compression  as  the  breadth 
of  the  subject  and  its  peculiar  liability  to  be  misunderstood, 
would  safely  permit. 

(*) 


Xll  PREFACE. 

I  dare  not  presume  that  there  will  not  be  many  contradio 
tions  to  so  large  a  volume,  in  which  every  sentence,  and  fre- 
quently each  clause  of  a  sentence,  is  a  judgment  on  matters 
about  which  all  pious  Catholics  have  a  more  or  less  formed 
opinion.  But  so  generous  a  measure  of  indulgence  has  been 
dealt  to  me  before,  that  I  cannot  persuade  myself  it  will  now  be 
altogether  withdrawn,  especially  as  the  book  will  not  be  found 
to  contain  one  intentional  word  or  unfavorable  criticism  either 
of  men  or  things.  This  is  my  only  boast.  For  the  rest,  I  have 
done  no  more  than  try  to  harmonize  the  ancient  and  modern 
spirituality  of  the  Church,  with  somewhat  perhaps  of  a  propen- 
sion  to  the  first,  and  to  put  it  before  English  Catholics  in  an 
English  shape,  translated  into  native  thought  and  feeling,  as 
well  as  language. 

Much  of  the  material  of  the  book  has  fully  observed  the  Hora- 
tian  precept  of  Nonum  prematur  in  annum,  and  the  rest  has  been 
nine  years  growing.  But  it  is  a  very  easy  thing  for  a  man  to 
go  wrong  in  spiritual  theology,  and  to  stray  into  the  shadow  of 
condemned  propositions.  It  will  not  therefore  be  conceitedly 
making  much  of  a  little  thing,  if  I  say  that  I  retract  beforehand 
in  the  amplest  and  most  unqualified  manner  anything,  whether 
of  thought  or  of  expression,  which  may  be  uncongenial,  not 
only  to  the  decisions  of  the  Holy  See,  but  also  to  the  approved 
teaching  of  our  Religious  Orders  and  Theological  Schools. 
May  God  be  with  my  work  where  it  speaks  the  mind  of  Hia 
Church  without  exaggeration  and  with  sincerity! 

Ever,  my  dear  Father  Antony, 

Affectionately  yours, 

Fred.  W.  Fabkr. 

The  Oratory.    London. 
FeartofSt.  Ilugh     1854. 


Quin  etiam  juniores,  quanquam  theologicis  htens  imbuti,  talent 
debent  reverentiam  senioribus  iis,  quibus  vita  cum  scientia  concor- 
dat, ut  vrx  propter  aliquas  novas  suasiones  quantumcumque  appa- 
rent^ pertinux  unquam  feratur  cito  contra  determinationes  eorun- 
dem  assertio.  Virtus  quippe,  qualem  babebant  genitam  ex  multia 
experientiis,  l^nge*  certius  arte  judicat  et  operator. 

Per  paucam  instructionem  intellects,  in  scientiis  praesertim  divi- 
ng causantur  nonnunquam  errores  in  eis,  qui  6e  totos  devotioni 
tradiderunt,  dum  voluerunt  plus  sapere,  quam  sibi  satis  erat. 

Gerson. 

Consultius  nibil  fieri  a  nobis  potest  quam  ut  nostras  semper 
opiniones  et  voluntates,  linguas  pennasque  aptemus  ei  disciplinse, 
que  in  universali  viget  Ecclesia  eo  aevo,  quo  nos  summi  providentia 
numinis  collocavit 

Thomas  sinus. 

Noli  eos  imitari,  qui  nullum  legendi  ordinem  servant;  sed  quod 
forte  occurrerit,  quodque  casu  repererint,  legere  gaudent:  quibus 
nibil  sapit,  nisi  quod  novum  est,  et  inauditum.  Consulta  enim,  et 
Vetera  omnia,  quantum  libet  utilir,  fastidiunt.  Tanta  instabilitas 
procul  a  te  cit:  ipsa  enim  non  promovet,  sed  dispergit  spiritumj  et 
perieulose  laborat,  qui  hoc  morbo  vitiatus  est. 

Dacbiahoi. 


(Iffi) 


CONTENTS 


-■at.  tun 

I.  True  Signs  op  Progress  in  the  Spiritual  Life.  17 

II.  Presumption  and  Discouragement 27 

iii.  how   to   make   the  most   of   our   slgns  of 

Progress 41 

IV.  The  Spirit  in  which  we  serve  God 53 

V.  What  Holds  us  Back 67 

VI.  External  Conduct 81 

VII.  The  Ruling  Passion 95 

VIII.  Our  Normal  State 108 

IX.  Patience 130 

X.  Human  Respect 150 

XI.  Mortification  our  True  Perseverance.  . 163 

XII.  The  Human  Spirit 185 

XIII.  The  Human  Spirit  Defeated ...  206 

XIV.  Spiritual  Idleness .  224 

XV.  Prayer 243 

XVI.  Temptations 277 

(xv) 


XVI  CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PA« 

XVII.  Scruples '. ..  298 

XVIII.  The  Office  of  Spiritual  Director 324 

XIX.  Abiding  Sorrow  for  Sin 350 

XX.  The  Right  View  of  our  Faults 367 

XXI.  The  Irreligious  and  the  Elect 382 

XXII.  The  True  Idea  of  Devotion 397 

XXIII.  The  Right  Use  of  Spiritual  Favors  .   423 

XXIV.  Distractions  and  their  Remedies.  .  * 453 

XXV.  Lukewarmness 469 

XXVI.  Fervor , 480 

XXVII.  Discrwiow 488 


GROWTH  IN  HOLINESS, 


CHAPTER  I. 

TRUE   SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS   IN   THE   SPIRITUAL   LIFE. 

The  spiritual  life  is  made  up  of  contradictions.  Thii 
Is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  human  nature  is  fallen 
One  of  the  greatest  contradictions,  and  practically  one  of 
the  most  difficult  to  be  managed,  is  that  in  spirituality  it 
is  very  important  we  should  know  a  great  deal  about  our- 
selves, and  at  the  same  time  equally  important  that  we 
should  think  very  little  about  ourselves;  and  it  is  not 
easy  to  reconcile  these  things.  I  mention  i-his  difficulty 
at  the  outset,  inasmuch  as  we  shall  have  in  the  course  of 
this  treatise  to  look  very  much  into  ourselves,  and  conse- 
quently we  run  the  risk  at  the  same  time  of  thinking  very 
much  of  ourselves ;  and  this  last  might  do  us  more  harm 
than  the  first  would  do  us  good. 

No  knowledge  in  the  world  can  be  more  interesting  to 
us  than  to  know  how  we  stand  with  God.  Every  thing 
depends  upon  it.  It  is  the  science  of  sciences  to  us,  more 
than  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  which  tempted  Adam 
and  Eve  so  violently.  If  we  are  well  with  God,  all  is  well 
2*  b  (17 ) 


18  TRUE   SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS 

with  us,  though  the  thickest  darkness  of  adversity  bo 
round  about.  If  we  are  not  well  with  Him,  nothing  is 
well  with  us,  though  the  best  and  brightest  of  earth  be  at 
our  feet.  It  is  natural  that  we  should  desire  to  know  if 
we  are  making  progress  in  the  spiritual  life ;  neither  is 
there  anything  wrong,  or  even  imperfect,  in  the  desire, 
provided  it  be  not  inordinate.  It  would  be  an  immense 
consolation  to  us,  if  we  should  have  reason  to  suppose  we 
were  advancing;  and  if,  on  the  contrary,  we  had  grounds 
for  suspecting  something  was  amiss,  there  would  at  least 
be  a  sense  of  safety  and  security  in  the  feeling  that  at  all 
events  we  were  not  going  on  in  the  dark  about  the  matter 
which  concerns  us  more  nearly  and  dearly  than  anything 
else.  Love  likes  to  know  that  it  is  accepted  and  recipro- 
cated ;  and  in  the  case  of  God  especially,  that  it  i3  not 
rejected  as  it  deserves  to  be ;  and  fear  is  equally  anxious 
for  the  same  knowledge  because  of  the  eternal  interests 
which  are  concerned  in  it. 

But  however  much  we  may  desire  it,  we  cannot  have 
anything  like  an  accurate  knowledge  of  our  progress  in 
the  spiritual  life;  and  that  for  reasons  on  God's  side  as 
well  as  on  our  own.  On  His  side,  because  it  is  His  way 
to  conceal  His  work ;  and  on  ours,  because  self-love  exag- 
gerates the  little  good  we  do.  We  do  not  even  know  for 
certain  whether  we  are  in  a  state  of  grace,  or  as  Scripture 
expresses  it,  whether  we  deserve  love  or  hatred.  For  we 
have  each  of  us  a  cavern  of  secret  sins  about  us ;  and  as 
the  Inspired  Writer  warns  us,  we  must  not  be  without 
fear  even  of  forgiven  sin. 

There  are  wrong  ways  of  trying  to  gain  this  knowledge 
which  the  impatient  heart  seeks  so  anxiously.  All  desires 
become  inordinate  in  the  long  run,  if  they  are  not  sharply 


IN   THE   SPIRITUAL   LIFE.  19 

Bebooled  and  tightly  kept  under ;  and  it  is  when  they  be- 
come inordinate  that  they  hit  with  such  fatal  ingenuity 
upon  wrong  ways  of  satisfying  themselves.  One  of  these 
wrong  ways  is  pressing  our  directors  to  tell  us  their  judg- 
ment about  us,  which  they  are  naturally  very  reluctant 
to  do,  both  because  they  shrink  from  apparent  pretension 
to  supernatural  gifts,  such  as  the  discernment  of  spirits, 
and  because  they  are  aware  that  such  knowledge  is  hardly 
ever  good  for  us  to  have.  Then,  when  this  artifice  proves 
unsuccessful,  we  take  arbitrary  and  artificial  marks  of  our 
own,  as  children  run  sticks  into  the  sand  to  time  the  tide 
by;  and,  as  might  be  expected,  we  select  wrongly  where 
we  had  no  right  to  select  at  all ;  and  having  made  a  mis- 
take, we  are  obstinate  in  it,  and  as  is  usual  with  men,  the 
more  obstinate  in  proportion  as  we  are  more  mistaken  ; 
and  so  the  end  of  it  all  is  delusion.  And  even  when  we 
do  not  seek  to  know  our  own  interior  state  by  one  of  these 
wrong  methods,  we  do  what  is  equally  wrong,  by  disquiet- 
ing ourselves  constantly  upon  the  subject,  which  is  nothing 
less  than  a  forfeiting  of  blessings  and  graces  nearly  every 
jour  in  the  day. 

But  in  truth  as  it  is  with  the  hour  of  our  death,  so  it 
is  with  our  growth  in  grace.  It  is  in  every  way  not  good 
for  us  that  we  should  have  any  certain  or  exact  know- 
ledge about  it.  It  is  as  much  as  ever  we  can  do  to  keep 
ourselves  humble,  even  when  our  faults  are  open  and 
glaring,  and  any  good  there  may  be  in  us  so  little  as  to 
be  almost  invisible.  What  then  would  it  be  if  we  were 
truly  growing  in  grace,  and  making  rapid  strides  in  the 
love  of  God  ?  Surely  the  less  we  know,  the  easier  it  will 
be  to  keep  humble.  Moreover,  the  absence  of  such  exacu 
knowledge  renders  us  more  supple  and  obedient,  both  to 


10  TRUE    SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS 

the  inspirations  of  the  Holy  Ghost  within  us,  and  to  the 
suggestions  of  our  spiritual  directors  without  us.  Just  aa 
it  is  ignorance  of  their  maladies  which  makes  the  sick  so 
amenable  to  their  physicians,  so  it  is  with  our  ignorance 
of  our  proficiency  in  the  spiritual  life.  And  how  much 
of  this  proficiency  depends  on  this  twofold  obedience  to 
inspirations  and  direction !  Furthermore,  the  very  un- 
certainty is  itself  a  perpetual  stimulus  to  greater  genero- 
sity towards  God.  For  the  worst  of  all  excessive  self- 
inspection  is,  that  the  good  grows  and  swells  as  we  look 
at  it,  and  because  we  look  at  it;  and  hence,  a  man  whose 
eye  is  always  turned  inward  on  his  own  heart,  has,  for  the 
most  part,  a  strangely  exaggerated  notion  of  the  amount 
of  what  he  is  doing  for  God.  Whereas  it  is  the  very  dis- 
proportion between  the  greatness  of  what  God  has  done 
for  us,  and  the  spirit  of  Fatherly  love  in  which  He  has 
done  it,  and  the  littleness  of  what  we  do  for  God,  and  the 
spirit  of  niggardliness  in  which  we  do  it,  that  makes  us 
crave  to  love  Him  more,  and  to  work  for  Him  more  self- 
denyingly.  Hence  I  conclude  that  it  would  not  be  for 
our  own  best  interests  to  know  exactly,  and  for  certain, 
how  far  we  had  got  on  the  road  to  perfection 

Nevertheless  a  certain  amount  of  knowledge  of  our  state 
is  possible,  desirable,  and  even  necessary,  so  long  as  it  be 
desired  moderately,  and  sought  for  rightly.  We  need 
consolation  in  so  difficult  and  doubtful  a  battle ;  and  we 
are  not  yet  sufficiently  detached  not  to  find  an  especial 
consolation  in  the  knowledge  of  the  operations  of  grace 
within  our  souls.  We  cannot  be  much  given  to  prayer 
without  obtaining  more  or  less  insight  into  God's  dealings 
with  us ;  and  indeed  if  we  do  not  know  the  graces  which 
3od  is  giving  us,  we  shall  not  know  how  to  correspond 


IN    THE    SPIRITUAL   LIFE.  21 

to  them.  So  that  some  amount  of  such  knowledge  is  ab- 
solutely necessary  to  our  carrying  on  the  Christian  warfare 
at  all ;  and  the  lawful  ways  of  acquiring  it  are  prayer,  ex- 
amination of  conscience,  and  the  spontaneous  admonitions 
of  our  spiritual  director. 

This  is  enough  to  say  about  the  knowledge  of  our  own 
spiritual  state.  It  is  a  very  difficult  and  dangerous  sub- 
ject. The  less  of  such  knowledge  we  can  do  with  the 
better ;  because  it  is  so  hard  to  seek  it  rightly,  or  to  use 
it  moderately.  Still  it  cannot  be  dispensed  with  altoge- 
ther, though  its  importance  varies  with  the  spiritual  con- 
dition of  the  individual. 

Thus  it  is  important  for  us  to  put  before  ourselves 
clearly  the  particular  condition  of  the  spiritual  life  which 
we  are  now  concerned  with.  Persons  are  what  is  called 
converted;  that  is,  they  are  turned  to  God  and  commence 
a  new  life.  They  do  penance  for  their  sins  :  they  abjure 
certain  false  maxims  which  they  held :  they  feel  differently 
towards  God  and  Jesus  Christ :  they  commit  themselves 
to  certain  practices  of  mortification :  they  pledge  them- 
selves to  certain  devotional  observances;  and  they  put 
themselves  under  the  obedience  of  spiritual  direction. 
Then  they  have  their  first  fervours.  They  are  helped  by 
a  supernatural  promptitude  in  all  that  concerns  the  service 
of  God,  by  sensible  sweetness  in  prayer,  by  joy  in  the 
sacraments,  by  a  new  taste  for  penance  and  humiliation, 
and  a  facility  in  meditation,  and  often  a  cessation,  partial 
or  entire,  of  temptation.  These  first  fervours  may  last 
weeks,  or  months,  or  a  year  or  two  even ;  and  then  their 
work  is  done.  We  have  corresponded  to  them  more  or 
less  faithfully.  They  have  had  their  own  experiences, 
peculiarities,  symptoms,  difficulties.     They  have  a  parti- 


22  TRUE   SIGNS   OP   PROGRESS 

cular  genius  of  their  own,  and  need  a  direction  which  is 
suitable  for  them,  and  is  not  suitable  for  anything  else. 
Now  they  have  passed  away,  and  are  out  of  our  reach. 
We  shall  meet  them  again  at  the  judgment-seat,  and  not 
before. 

But  where  have  they  left  us  ?  At  the  commencement 
of  a  new  stage  in  the  spiritual  life,  a  very  trying  and  a 
very  critical  time.  The  mere  passing  away  of  fervours, 
which  were  never  meant  for  anything  more  than  a  tempo- 
rary dispensation,  leaves  us  immersed  in  an  uncomfortable 
feeling  of  lukewarmness.  The  characteristics  of  our 
present  state  are  that  we  seem  to  be  left  more  to  ourselves 
than  we  were.  Grace  appears  to  do  less  for  us.  Old 
natural  character  comes  up,  when  the  fervours  that  over- 
laid it  are  gone  out,  and  begins  to  tell  again  with  amazing 
vivacity.  We  felt  as  if  we  were  more  thrown  upon  the 
manliness  and  honesty  of  our  own  purposes  and  wills,  and 
were,  at  least  less  sensibly,  buoyed  up  by  the  various 
apparatus  of  the  supernatural  life.  Our  prayers  become 
drier.  The  ground  we  are  digging  is  stiffer  and  stonier. 
The  work  seems  less  attractive  in  proportion  as  it  grows 
more  solid.  Perfection  does  not  feel  so  easy,  and  penance 
unbearable.  Now  is  the  time  for  courage,  now  is  the  trial 
of  our  real  worth.  We  are  beginning  to  travel  the  cen- 
tral regions  of  the  spiritual  life?  and  they  are,  on  the 
whole,  tracts  of  wilderness.  Here  it  is  that  so  many  turn 
back,  and  are  thrown  aside  by  God  as  frustrate  saints  and 
broken  vocations.  The  soul  I  am  addressing  has  come  to 
this  point,  and  is  toiling  on,  burnt  by  the  sun  and  wind, 
ankle  deep  in  the  sand,  filled  with  despair  from  the  infre- 
quency  of  the  water-springs,  querulous  for  the  want  of 


IN   THE   SPIRITUAL   LIFE.  23 

tool  quiet  shade,  and  greatly  inclined  to  sit  down  and 
give  the  matter  up  as  hopeless. 

For  the  love  of  God  do  not  sit  down  !  It  is  all  over 
with  you  if  you  do.  If  I  only  knew,  you  say,  that  I  waa 
getting  on,  if  I  could  really  believe  I  was  making  any 
way  at  all,  I  would  force  my  weary  limbs  to  advance! 
Two  are  better  than  one,  saith  Scripture ;  so  let  us  toil  on 
together  for  awhile,  and  talk  of  our  helps  and  hindrances. 
We  are  not  saints,  you  know.  Perhaps  we  are  not  aiming 
at  saints'  heights;  and  if  we  are  not,  then  we  must  not 
take  saints'  liberties.  The  lessons  we  want  must  be 
sober,  and  safe,  and  low.  Anyhow  we  must  neither  turn 
back  nor  sit  down. 

Are  we  getting  on  ?  There  is  not  a  well  or  a  palm  to 
measure  by;  there  is  only  sand  and  an  horizon.  Courage! 
here  are  five  signs.  If  we  have  one  of  them,  it  is  well ; 
if  two,  better;  if  three,  better  still;  if  four,  capital;  if 
all  the  five,  glorious. 

1.  If  we  are  discontented  with  our  present  state,  what- 
ever it  may  be,  and  want  to  be  something  better  and 
higher,  we  have  great  reason  to  be  thankful  to  God.  For 
such  discontent  is  one  of  His  best  gifts,  and  a  great  sign 
that  we  are  really  making  progress  in  the  spiritual  life 
But  we  must  remember  that  our  dissatisfaction  with  our- 
selves must  be  of  such  a  nature  as  to  increase  our  humi- 
lity, and  not  such  as  to  cause  disquietude  of  mind  or 
uneasiness  in  our  devotional  exercises.  It  must  be  made 
up  of  a  rather  impatient  desire  to  advance  in  holiness, 
combined  with  gratitude  for  past  graces,  confidence  for 
future  ones,  and  a  keen,  indignant  feeling  of  how  much 
more  grace  we  have  received  than  we  have  corresponded  to. 

2.  Again,  strange  as  it  may  sound,  it  is  a  sign  of  our 


24  TRUE   SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS 

growth  if  we  are  always  making  new  beginnings  and  fresh 
starts.  The  great  St.  Antony  made  perfection  consist  in 
it.  Yet  this  is  often  ignorantly  made  a  motive  of  discou- 
ragement, from  persons  confounding  fresh  starts  in  the 
ievout  life  with  the  incessant  risings  and  relapsings  of 
habitual  sinners.  Neither  must  we  confound  these  con- 
tinual fresh  beginnings  with  the  fickleness  which  so  often 
leads  to  dissipation,  and  keeps  us  back  in  our  heavenward 
path.  For  these  new  starts  seen  something  higher,  and 
therefore  for  the  most  part  something  arduous ;  whereas 
fickleness  is  tired  of  the  yoke,  and  seeks  ease  and  change. 
Neither  again  do  these  beginnings  consist -in  changing  our 
spiritual  books,  or  our  penances,  or  our  methods  of  prayer, 
much  less  our  directors.  But  they  consist  in  two  things 
chiefly  :  first,  a  renewal  of  our  intention  for  the  glory  of 
Grod;  and  secondly,  a  revival  of  our  fervour. 

3.  It  is  also  a  sign  of  progress  in  the  spiritual  life,  when 
we  have  some  definite  thing  in  view :  for  instance,  if  we 
are  trying  to  acquire  the  habit  of  some  particular  virtue, 
or  to  conquer  some  besetting  infirmity,  or  to  accustom 
ourselves  to  a  certain  penance.  All  this  is  a  test  of  ear- 
nestness, and  also  a  token  of  the  vigour  of  divine  grace 
within  us.  Whereas  if  we  are  attacking  no  particular 
part  of  the  enemy's  line,  it  is  hardly  a  battle ;  and  if  we 
are  shooting  without  an  aim,  what  can  come  of  it  but 
smoke  and  noise  ?  It  is  not  likely  we  are  advancing,  if, 
as  people  speak,  we  are  going  on  in  a  general  way,  without 
distinctly  selecting  an  end  to  reach,  and  actively  forcing 
our  way  to  the  end  we  have  thus  consciously  selected. 

4.  But  it  is  a  still  greater  sign  that  we  are  making 
progress,  if  we  have  a  strong  feeling  on  our  minds  that 
God  wants  something  particular  from  us.     We  are  some' 


IN   THE    SPIRITUAL   IIFE.  25 

times  aware  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  drawing  us  in  one 
direction  rather  than  in  another,  that  He  desires  some 
fault  to  be  removed,  or  some  pious  work  to  be  undertaken. 
This  is  called  by  spiritual  writers  an  attraction.  Some 
have  one  persevering  attraction  all  their  lives  long.  With 
others  it  is  constantly  changing.  With  many  it  is  so 
indistinct  that  they  only  realize  it  now  and  then ;  and 
not  a  few  seem  to  be  without  any  such  special  drawing  at 
all.*  It  implies  of  course  an  active  self-knowledge,  as 
well  as  a  quiet  inward  eye  of  prayer ;  and  it  is  a  great 
gift,  because  of  the  immense  facilities  which  it  gives  for 
the  practice  of  perfection ;  for  it  almost  resembles  a  spe- 
cial revelation.  To  feel  then,  with  all  sober  reverence, 
this  drawing  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  a  sign  that  we  are 
making  progress.  Yet  it  must  be  carefully  remembered 
that  no  one  should  be  disquieted  because  of  the  absence 
of  such  a  feeling.  It  is  neither  universal  nor  indis- 
pensable. 

5.  I  will  venture  also  to  add  that  an  increased  general 
desire  of  being  more  perfect  is  not  altogether  without  its 
value  as  a  sign  of  progress :  and  that,  in  spite  of  what  I 
have  said  of  the  importance  of  having  a  definite  object  in 
view.  I  do  not  think  we  esteem  this  general  desire  of 
perfection  sufficiently.  Of  course  we  must  not  stop  at  it 
nor  be  satisfied  with  it.  It  is  only  given  us  to  go  on  with. 
Still,  when  we  consider  how  worldly  most  good  Christians 
are,  and  their  amazing  blindness  to  the  interests  of  Jesus, 

*  It  was  remarked  by  Mother  de  Blonay,  that  those  who  are  des- 
tined by  God  to  spend  great  part  of  their  lives  in  religious  superior- 
•  ships,  are,  for  the  most  part,  without  any  peculiar  attraction.  Because 
it  is  a  "  universal  spirit"  which  the  Holy  Ghost  desires  to  form  in 
luch  souls. 

3 


26  TRUE    SIGNS    OF   PROGRESS,   ETC. 

and  their  almost  incredible  impenetrability  by  super, 
natural  principles,  we  must  see  that  this  desire  of  holiness 
is  from  God,  and  a  great  gift,  and  that  much  which  is  of 
surpassing  consequence  is  implied  in  it.  God  be  praised 
for  every  soul  in  the  world  which  is  so  fortunate  as  to 
possess  it !  It  is  almost  inconsistent  with  lukewarmness ; 
and  this  is  no  slight  recommendation  in  itself:  and  al- 
though there  is  much  beyond  it  and  much  above  it,  yet 
it  is  indispensable  both  to  what  is  beyond  and  what  is 
above.  Nevertheless  we  must  not  be  blind  to  its  dangers. 
All  supernatural  desires,  which  we  simply  enjoy  without 
practically  corresponding  to  them,  leave  us  in  a  worse 
state  than  they  found  us.  In  order  to  be  safe  we  must 
proceed  without  delay  to  embody  the  desire  in  some  act 
or  other,  prayer,  penance,  or  zealous  deed :  yet  not  pre- 
cipitately, or  without  counsel. 

Here  then  are  five  fairly  probable  signs  of  progress, 
and  none  of  them  so  far  above  our  heads  as  to  be  un 
practical  to  the  lowest  of  us.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
the  existence  of  these  signs  implies  that  all  is  as  it  ought 
to  be  in  our  spiritual  life ;  but  that  it  shows  we  are  alive, 
advancing,  and  in  the  way  of  grace :  and  the  possession 
of  any  one  of  these  signs  is  something  unspeakably  more 
precious  than  the  best  and  highest  gift  earth  can  give. 
I  repeat,  if  we  have  one  of  these  signs  it  is  well ;  if  two, 
better;  if  three,  better  still;  if  four,  capital;  if  all  five, 
glorious.  Now  see!  we  have  made  a  little  way.  We 
are  further  into  the  wilderness;  and  if  as  footsore  «v 
ever,  at  least  a  trifle  less  fainthearted. 


PRESUMPTION    AND   DISCOURAGEMENT,  27 

CHAPTER  II. 

PRESUMPTION   AND   DISCOURAGEMENT. 

You  will  see  by  the  last  chapter  that  I  have  made  a 
sort  of  map  of  the  spiritual  life  in  my  own  mind.  I 
have  divided  it  into  three  regions  of  very  unequal  extent, 
and  of  very  diversified  interest.  First,  there  comes  the 
region  of  beginnings,  a  wonderful  time,  so  wonderful 
that  nobody  realizes  how  wonderful  it  is,  till  they  are  out 
of  it,  and  can  look  back  on  it.  Then  stretches  a  vast 
extent  of  wilderness,  full  of  temptation,  struggle,  and 
fatigue,  a  place  of  work  and  suflfering,  with  angels,  good 
and  bad,  winging  their  way  in  every  direction,  the  roads 
hard  to  find  and  slippery  underfoot,  and  Jesus  with  the 
Cross  meeting  us  at  every  turn.  This  is  four  or  five 
times  the  length  of  the  first  region.  Then  comes  a 
region  of  beautiful,  wooded,  watered,  yet  rocky  moun- 
tains, lovely  yet  savage  too,  liable  to  terrific  tempests  and 
to  those  sudden  overcastings  of  bright  nature,  which 
characterize  mountainous  districts.  This  last  is  the  land 
of  high  prayer,  of  brave  self-crucifixions,  of  mystical 
trials,  and  of  heights  of  superhuman  detachment  and 
abjection,  whose  rarefied  atmosphere  only  chosen  souls 
cm  breathe. 

I  have  joined  myself  to  a  soul  who  is  out  of  the  region 
of  beginnings,  and  has  just  entered  on  the  great  central 
wilderness,  whose  long  plains  of  weary  sand  join  the 
verdant  fields  of  the  beginners  with  the  woody  mountains 
of  the  long-tried  and  w  ell-mortified   souls.     God    calls 


28  PRESUMPTION   AND   DISCOURAGEMENT. 

some  to  Himself  in  their  first  fervours,  others  mature  in 
grace  on  the  mountain  heights.  But  more  die  in  the 
wilderness,  some  at  one  point  of  the  pilgrimage,  some  at 
another.  Of  course  there  is  only  one  good  time  for  each 
of  us  to  die;  and  that  is  the  exact  hour  at  which  God 
wills  that  death  should  find  us.  But  as  the  great  body 
of  devout  men  die  while  they  are  crossing  the  central 
wilderness,  it  is  this  wilderness  of  which  I  wish  to  speak  : 
the  wilderness  of  long,  patient  perseverance  in  the  hum- 
bling practices  of  solid  virtue. 

Persons  who  are  aiming  ever  so  little  at  perfection  are 
the  choice  portion  of  Grod's  creation,  and  are  dear  to  Him 
as  the  apple  of  His  eye.  Hence  everything  that  con- 
cerns them  is  of  consequence.  Thus  it  was  important 
that  they  should  have  some  signs  furnished  them,  by 
means  of  which  they  could  estimate  with  some  probability 
the  progress  they  are  making  in  the  spiritual  life  But 
they  often  mistake  for  signs  of  progress  things  which 
taken  by  themselves  do  not  tell  either  way;  and  thus 
they  fall  into  delusions  which  take  them  into  bye-paths, 
tire  them  out,  and  then  bring  them  back  again  into  the 
road  miles  behind  where  they  were,  when  they  first 
wandered.  These  false  signs  will  form  the  subject  of 
this  chapter.  The  consideration  of  them  is  of  the  more 
importance,  inasmuch  as  it  brings  us  across  a  great  many 
facts  about  the  spiritual  life  which  it  exceedingly  concerns 
us  to  know.    • 

The  soul  then  at  this  sti  ge  of  its  journey  is  beset  by 
two  opposite  temptations.  Sometimes  it  is  attacked  by 
one,  sometimes  by  another,  according  to  different  moods 
of  mind  and  diversities  of  character.  These  temptations 
are   discouragement   and   piesumption;    and   our  chief 


PRESUMPTION.  AND   DISCOURAGEMENT  29 

business  at  this  point  is  to  be  upon  our  guard  against 
these  two  things. 

Discouragement  is  an  inclination  to  give  up  all  attempts 
after  the  devout  life,  in  consequence  of  the  difficulties  by 
which  it  is  beset,  and\  our  already  numerous  failures  in  it. 
We  lose  heart  j  and  partly  in  ill-temper,  partly  in  real 
doubt  of  our  own  ability  to  persevere,  we  first  grow 
querulous  and  peevish  with  God,  and  then  relax  in  our 
efforts  to  mortify  ourselves  and  to  please  Him.  It  is  like 
the  sin  of  despair,  although  it  is  not  truly  any  sin  at  all. 
It  is  a  sort  of  shadow  of  despair ;  and  it  will  lead  us  into 
numberless  venial  sins  the  first  half-hour  we  give  way  to 
it.  What  it  shows  is  that  we  trusted  too  much  to  our 
own  strength,  and  had  a  higher  opinion  of  ourselves  than 
we  were  at  all  warranted  in  having.  If  we  had  been 
truly  humble,  we  should  have  been  surprised  we  did  not 
do  worse,  instead  of  being  disappointed  we  did  not  do 
better.  Many  souls  are  called  to  perfection,  and  fail, 
through  the  sole  and  single  mischief  of  discouragement. 

Meanwhile  persons  trying  to  be  spiritual  are  peculiarly 
liable  to  discouragement,  because  of  their  great  sensitive- 
ness. Their  attention  is  riveted  to  a  degree  in  which  it 
never  was  before  on  two  things,  minute  duties  and  observ- 
ances, and  exterior  motives ;  and  both  these  things  ren- 
der them  uncommonly  sensitive.  Conscience,  acted  upon 
by  the  Holy  Ghost,  becomes  so  fine  and  delicate  that  it 
feels  the  jar  of  little  infirmities,  that  never  seemed  intir- 
mities  before ;  and  not  only  is  its  perception  of  sia  quick- 
ened, but  the  sense  of  pain  which  «iq  infliota  ?s  koeter. 
The  difficulty  and  the  hiddenness  of  the  work  ia  svhich 
they  are  engaged  augments  still  more*  thij  sen:*iu;veues8, 
especially  as  they  are  so  far  from  r*cewng  >^b!«  support 
3* 


80  PRESUMPTION   AND   DISCOURAGEMENT. 

from  those  around  them,  that  they  must  rather  make 
their  account  to  be  called  enthusiastic  and  indiscreet,  sin- 
gular and  affected,  by  those  even  who  are  good  people, 
but  have  the  incalculable  ill-luck  to  be  good  in  their  own 
way,  not  in  God's  way.  Moreover  early  piety  is  never 
wise.  How  should  it  be,  since  experience  alone  can  make 
it  wise  ?  The  world  complains  of  the  mistakes  of  begin- 
ners in  religion,  not  seeing  that  they  only  make  these 
mistakes  because  they  are  not  yet  quite  so  unworldly  and 
anti-worldly,  as  please  God  they  will  be  by  and  by.  One 
of  these  mistakes  is  that  they  exaggerate  their  own  faults, 
and  this  at  once  leads  to  discouragement.  Besides  that, 
they  are  working  to  high  models,  Jesus  and  the  Saints ; 
and  when  they  have  done  their  best,  and  what  is  for  them 
really  well,  it  must  be  so  terribly  below  what  they  aimed 
at  that  they  can  hardly  help  being  disappointed.  What 
is  more  trying  to  spirits  and  temper  than  to  be  invariably 
playing  a  losing  game  ?  And  what  else  can  a  man  do 
who  has  made  up  his  mind  to  be  like  his  Crucifix  ? 

But  the  upshot  of  all  this  discouragement  is  that  i* 
Tenders  us  languid  and  unjoyous ;  just  the  two  worsv 
things  that  could  happen  to  us,  because  they  make  any 
thing  heroic  simply  impossible.  If  a  man  has  tight  hold 
of  his  adversary  in  a  wrestling  match,  and  is  suddenly 
seized  with  languor,  all  is  over  with  him ;  for  the  victory 
depended  on  the  play  of  his  muscles  and  the  firmness 
of  his  hold.  A  victorious  army  can  beat  a  vanquished 
army  of  twice  its  numbers,  because  the  joy  of  victory  is 
such  a  moral  power.  Thus  to  be  languid  and  unjoyous, 
and  that  so  early  in  the  day,  is  quite  fatal  to  us ;  and  it 
is  in  these  two  things  that  the  bane  of  discouragement 
consists 


PRESUMPTION  AND   DISCOURAGEMENT.  31 

As  to  presumption  I  believe  it  is  much  less  common 
than  discouragement.  A  man  must  be  a  fool  to  be  pre- 
sumptuous in  religion.  Nevertheless  we  can  be  very 
foolish  when  we  least  expect  it.  St.  Theresa  says  humi- 
lity is  the  first  requisite  for  those  who  wish  to  lead  an 
ordinarily  good  life ;  but  that  courage  is  the  first  requi- 
site for  those  who  aim  at  any  degree  of  perfection.  Now 
presumption  is  never  very  far  from  courage ;  and  hence 
we  must  be  upon  our  guard  against  it.  We  may  fall  into 
it  in  many  different  ways ;  and  I  will  mention  some  of 
them.  There  is  a  proverb  that  the  first  blow  is  half  th« 
battle.  I  do  not  think  it  holds  in  spiritual  matters ;  and 
the  reason  I  do  not  think  so  is  that  such  a  number  of 
persons  are  called  to  devotion  and  an  interior  life,  who 
break  down  and  abandon  it.  The  fault  was  not  in  the 
first  blow.  It  was  vigorous  enough,  loving  enough,  hum 
ble  enough.  The  fault  was  later  on;  it  was  either  that 
they  got  tired  of  mortification,  or  that  they  fell  into  a 
common  superstition  about  grace,  and  when  it  did  not 
come  true,  they  were  disgusted.  This  superstition  con- 
sists in  imagining  that  grace  is  to  work  like  a  charm, 
almost  without  the  concurrence  of  our  own  wills.  A  man 
will  not  get  up  at  his  proper  time  in  the  morning.  He 
says  he  cannot ;  which  is  absurd,  for  there  is  no  physical 
power  holding  him  down  in  his  bed.  The  fact  is  he  will 
not;  he  does  not  choose  to  do  it;  the  virtue  of  it  or  the 
obedience  of  it  is  not  worth  the  pain  of  it.  He  pleads 
that  over  night  he  made  a  resolution  to  get  up  next  morn- 
ing, and  asked  the  souls  in  Purgatory  to  get  him  up.  The 
morning  comes ;  the  air  is  cold  ;  meditation  is  uninterest- 
ing; sleep  is  pleasant.  No  souls  have  come  from  Pur- 
gatory to  pull  him  out  of  bed,  draw  his  curtains,  light  his 


32  PRESUMPTION   AND   DISCOURAGEMENT. 

fire,  and  the  rest.  It  is  not  therefore  his  affair.  He  has 
done  his  part.  He  finished  it  all  last  night :  hut  grace 
has  not  worked.  What  can  he  do  ?  This  is  only  a  pic- 
ture of  a  thousand  other  things.  Multitudes  who  would 
have  been  nigh  to  saints  remain  nigh  to  sinners  from  this 
singular  superstition  about  grace.  What  we  want  is  not 
grace;  it  is  will.  We  have  already  a  thousand  times 
more  grace  than  we  correspond  to.  God  is  never  wanting 
on  His  side.  It  is  the  manly  persistent  will  which  is 
wanting  on  ours. 

But  to  return.  The  first  blow  is  not  half  the  battle 
in  the  devout  life.  But  we  think  it  is.  We  become  im- 
patient with  the  extreme  and  mysterious  slowness  of  God's 
movements,  and  we  think  the  work  begun  is  as  good  as 
the  work  ended ;  and  knowing  what  the  saints  have  done, 
when  after  long  austerities  they  had  consummated  their 
union  with  God,  so  far  as  on  earth  may  be,  we  presume, 
and  imitate  them  in  the  letter,  without  discerning  the 
spirit.  Or  again  we  mistake  the  vigour  of  Divine  Grace 
for  the  fortitude  of  our  own  will ;  and  so  we  turn  against 
God  some  special  accession  of  supernatural  strength  which 
He  has  compassionately  vouchsafed  to  us.  Experience 
has  not  yet  shown  us  by  how  many  defeats  each  spiritual 
victory  is  gained.  We  shall  find  that  out  presently )  for 
it  is  a  grand  fountain  of  humility.  Moreover  there  is  a 
peculiar  pleasure  and  an  exalting  sense  of  power  which 
for  a  long  time  sensibly  accompanies  co-operation  with 
grace.  We  bring  it  with  us  out  of  our  first  fervours,  and 
it  does  not  go  away  all  at  once  when  they  do.  And  we 
mistake  this  for  acquired  habits  of  solid  virtue.  Or  we 
dwell  on  our  own  good  works,  and  then  a  mist  rises  out 
of  them  and  we  see  them  double.     Or  injudicious  friends 


PRESUMPTION   AND   DISCOURAGEMENT.  33 

praise  us  and  remark  how  devout  we  have  grown  of  late, 
and  think  they  are  doing  us  a  kindness  while  they  are 
thus  overthrowing  the  work  of  God  in  our  souls.  All 
these  causes  lead  us  into  presumption,  and  presumption 
into  indiscreet  excesses,  and  indiscreet  excesses  into  self- 
trust,  and  self-trust  into  an  inevitable  reaction  against  the 
interior  life  altogether. 

Neither  must  we  forget  to  note,  though  it  belongs 
rather  to  a  treatise  on  the  Beginnings  of  the  Spiritual 
Life,  that  in  the  earlier  stages  of  our  course,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  remains  of  our  first  fervours,  there  are  some 
things  which  greatly  resemble  what  we  read  of  in 
advanced  saints.  The  fact  is,  we  are  only  just  settling 
into  our  normal  state.  God  has  hitherto  been  doing  far 
Jaore  than  it  is  His  will  to  do  for  a  continuance.  Our 
beginnings  are  sometimes  almost  as  supernatural  as  our 
endings  may  be.  We  are  not  to  expect  that  the  long 
interval  between  the  two  will  be  so.  We  must  part  com- 
pany now  with  a  great  deal  of  sensible  sweetness,  with 
many  secret  manifestations  of  God,  and  fervent  aspira- 
tions, which  have  sometimes  perhaps  made  us  fancy  that 
we  should  soon  be  saints.  Now  this  likeness  of  our 
beginnings  to  certain  features  of  more  advanced  states 
entices  us  occasionally  into  a  secret  presumption.  We 
have  no  idea  how  heavy  the  mere  pressure  of  time  will 
be  upon  us  hereafter,  nor  how  long  the  road  really  is, 
though  the  mountains  look  so  near.  Without  one  addi- 
tional duty,  without  one  new  temptation,  nay  I  will  put 
it  more  strongly  still,  with  fewer  duties  and  fewer  tempta- 
tions the  mere  continuance  of  going  against  our  natural 
inclinations,  which  is  implied  in  the  service  of  God,  is  a 
drag  upon  us  more  fatiguing  and  more  depressing  than 
c 


34  PRESUMPTION    AND   DISCOURAGEMENT 

we  could  have  conceived  beforehand-  Perseverance  la 
the  greatest  of  trials,  the  heaviest  of  burdens,  the  most 
crushing  of  crosses. 

These  two  dangers  of  discouragement  and  presumption 
lead  us  into  opposite  mistakes  with  regard  to  our  spiritual 
progress.  Hence  it  is  of  consequence  to  be  on  our  guard 
against  certain  symptoms  which  discouragement  will  take 
as  proofs  we  are  not  advancing,  and  presumption  as  proofs 
we  are  greatly  advancing,  when  in  reality,  taken  by  them- 
selves, they  tell  neither  way.  I  proceed  to  consider  five 
of  these  uncertain  signs  of  progress  :  and  to  look  at  each 
of  them  under  the  double  aspect  of  presumption  and 
discouragement. 

1.  After  watching  ourselves  for  a  time,  we  perceive 
that  we  either  do  or  do  not  conquer  some  besetting  fault. 
We  presume  upon  this.  But  let  us  consider.  It  may 
be  no  real  proof  of  progress,  for  our  temptations  ma^ 
from  many  causes  happen  to  be  weaker  at  that  particular 
time.  The  devil  by  his  natural  subtilty  may  foresee  that 
we  shall  thus  examine  ourselves,  and  thus  rest  upon  the 
result  of  our  examination  ;  and  wishing  to  inspire  us  with 
false  confidence,  which  is  always  fine  weather  for  his  cam- 
paign, Ls  may  draw  off  his  forces  and  leave  us  in  tempo- 
rary peace.  Or  again  our  faults  may  be  changing  from 
some  change  in  our  exterior  life,  or  from  the  force  of 
years,  or  any  other  cause.  That  our  faults  do  change  is 
certain,  and  these  changes  give  birth  to  some  of  the  most 
remarkable  phenomena  of  the  spiritual  life.  Or  again, 
from  some  little  infidelity  to  grace,  the  sensitiveness  and 
delicacy  of  our  conscience  may  be  in  punishment  a  little 
dulled ;  and  hence  we  may  be  less  conscious  of  our  falls. 
Is  there  any  one  who  has  not  experienced  this  punish- 


PRESUMPTION   AND  DISCOURAGEMENT.  35 

merit  ?  Hence  there  is  no  ground  for  presumption  simply 
in  our  perceiving  that  we  have  fallen  less  often  into  some 
besetting  fault.  But  then  there  is  also  no  reason  for 
discouragement  because  we  happen  of  late  to  have  fallen 
oftener.  We  must  go  on  taking  observations  for  a  long 
time  before  we  can  safely  begin  to  draw  inferences  from 
them.  It  may  be,  for  many  reasons,  that  we  are  more 
conscious  of  our  falls  just  now  than  we  were  before.  Or 
God  may  allow  us  to  fall  in  order  to  keep  us  humble,  or 
to  conceal  from  us  the  progress  we  may  be  making  in 
some  other  direction.  Or  it  may  be  that  our  great  enemy 
has  made  a  dead  set  against  us  in  that  particular  respect. 
We  may  be  actually  supporting  a  charge,  not  merely 
marching  through  a  difficult  country.  We  do  not  know 
enough  about  ourselves  to  be  reasonably  discouraged  then 
by  this  first  sign. 

2.  We  presume  or  are  disheartened  in  proportion  as 
we  have  or  have  not  sensible  sweetness  in  our  religious 
exercises.  But  presumption  should  remember  that  this 
sensible  sweetness  arises  very  often  from  physical  causes, 
from  good  health,  fine  weather  or  high  spirits,  and  even 
when  it  is  an  operation  of  grace  it  is  sometimes  a  testi- 
mony of  infirmity,  and  a  mark  of  spiritual  infancy.  It  is 
the  bait  of  God's  condescension  to  tempt  us  on,  when  we 
have  not  sufficient  solid  virtue  to  distinguish  between 
Him  and  His  gifts,  and  to  serve  Him  for  His  own  sake, 
not  for  theirs.  It  is  a  bait  to  be  eagerly  seized,  for  it 
brings  forth  solid  fruits.  Yet  it  is  God's  gift,  not  our  pro- 
gress. At  the  same  time  it  is  very  unreasonable  to  be 
discouraged  by  the  absence  of  this  sensible  sweetness. 
For  it  is  a  gift,  not  a  virtue;  and  God  gives  it  to  whom 
He  wills,  and  when  He  wills,  and  in  what  measure  He 


36  PRESUMPTION   AND   DISCOURAGEMENT. 

wills.  Nay,  His  very  withholding  it  is  sometimes  a 
favour;  for  it  is  meant  to  raise  the  soul  to  a  higher  state 
to  ennoble  its  love,  and  to  increase  its  occasions  of  merit- 
ing. Even  if  it  is  a  chastisement  it  may  be  a  favour. 
People  very  often  insist  on  giving  way  to  low  spirits 
because  the\  are  sure  that  such  or  such  a  symptom  in 
their  spiritual  life  is  a  divine  punishment.  Truly  a 
spiritual  mm,  when  he  is  peevish,  is  the  most  unreason- 
able of  all  complainants.  I  cannot  see  anything  disheart- 
ening in  being  punished  by  God.  On  the  contrary,  when 
He  punishes  He  does  not  ignore  us ;  and  His  ignoring 
us  would  be  the  really  terrible  thing.  And  when  He 
punishes,  it  is  a  father's  punishment,  and  the  hardness  of 
the  blow  and  the  number  of  the  stripes  are  in  truth  but 
measures  of  the  affectionateness  of  the  punishment. 
Never  let  us  wish  God  to  put  off  His  punishments.  It  is 
a  wish  He  might  easily  grant,  and  for  which  we  should 
pay  dearly  in  the  end.  God  is  interested  in  us  and  full 
of  merciful  purposes,  when  He  condescends  to  chastise 
us.  While  one  hand  wields  the  rod,  the  other  is  filled 
with  special  graces,  which  we  shall  receive  when  nature 
has  been  sufficiently  hurt  and  mortified. 

3.  Another  experience  which  we  are  in  the  habit  of 
making  too  much  of,  is  our  finding  or  our  not  finding 
mental  pra}rer  and  meditation  grow  easier.  For  medita- 
tion is  in  itself  ordinarily  so  difficult  that  anything  like 
an  increased  facility  in  it  presently  awakens  presumptuous 
feelings.  But  we  should  recollect  that  the  habit  of 
prayer  is  a  different  thing  from  the  grace  of  prayer;  and 
meditation  is  such  a  discursive  method  of  prayer  that  it 
is  quite  easy  to  form  a  habit  of  it  without  its  going  at  all 
deeply  into  us,  or  affecting  our  interior  life.     Instances 


PRESUMPTION   AND   DISCOURAGEMENT.  37 

of  this  come  across  us  continually  in  the  shape  of  men 
who  never  miss  their  morning  medi  ation,  yet  seem  to  bo 
none  the  better  for  it,  do  not  lead  more  mortified  lives,  or 
vanquish  their  dominant  passion,  or  govern  their  tongues, 
or  become  more  recollected.  Not  but  that  the  habit  of 
prayer  is  an  excellent  thing;  only  it  is  not  the  gift  of 
prayer,  and  we  are  apt  to  exaggerate  its  importance  from 
confounding  it  with  the  gift.  It  may  also  happen  at  any 
particular  time  that  the  subjects  of  our  meditations  may 
be  easier  to  us,  as  being  more  suitable  to  our  genius. 
The  different  times  of  the  ecclesiastical  year  may  bring 
this  about.  It  may  be  Christmas,  or  Lent,  or  Corpus 
Christi.  For  some  can  meditate  easily  on  the  Passion 
who  cannot  meditate  at  all  on  the  Infancy ;  and  some 
find  rest  and  devotion  in  the  Gospel  Narratives  and 
Parables  who  can  make  nothing  of  our  Lord's  Mysteries. 
Or  our  bodily  health  may  be  better,  our  sleep  sounder, 
or  our  circumstances  more  cheerful,  or  the  excitement  of 
some  great  feast,  coming  or  gone,  may  be  still  upon  us 
and  help  us.  All  this  is  against  our  presuming  simply 
because  for  the  while  meditation  goes  on  more  swim- 
mingly and  smoothly.  At  the  same  time  we  have  no 
reason  to  be  discouraged  if  meditation  so  far  from  growing 
easier  seems  to  become  impossible  to  us.  It  is  a  long 
work  to  gain  facility  in  mental  prayer,  and  it  is  acquired 
much  more  by  mortification  than  it  is  by  habit;  and  our 
progress  in  mortifications,  while  it  must  be  steady  and 
unsparing,  must  also  be  gradual  and  cautious,  erring 
rather  on  the  side  of  too  little  than  too  much,  because  of 
our  wretched  cowardice.  Moreover,  as  I  shall  have  to 
show  in  the  sequel,  dry  meditations  are  often  the  most 
profitable,  and  of  course  it  is  just  the  dryness  that  makes 
4 


88  PRESUMPTION   AND   DISCOURAGEMENT. 

the  difficulty.  And,  to  put  it  at  the  wcrst,  there  is  not 
necessarily  the  least  venial  sin  in  want  of  readiness  at 
prayer ;  and  surely  it  is  a  great  thing  for  us  at  this  stage, 
and  remembering  old  times,  that  God's  grace  keeps  us 
from  offending  Him.  It  is  not  a  sign  of  a  low  estate  to 
be  immensely  joyful  at  the  mere  absence  of  sin.  There 
are  better  things  in  store  for  us;  but  God  grant  that  as 
we  force  our  way  we  may  never  lose  the  simplicity  of  that 
satisfaction !  I  will  not  allow  that  we  have  always  a 
right  to  be  discouraged  even  by  our  sins,  but  I  am  sure 
we  ought  not  to  be  discouraged  by  anything  which  is 
short  of  sin. 

4.  We  are  often  apt  to  philosophize  on  the  phenomena 
of  our  temptations,  and  to  be  elated  or  cast  down  by 
what  we  fancy  we  observe  in  that  region.  But  even  if 
the  sky  look  cloudless  and  serene,  we  have  no  warrant  to 
be  elated.  Our  temptations  may  at  any  particular  time 
be  fewer  in  number,  as  I  have  observed  before.  They 
may  also  be  of  a  less  attractive  character,  in  consequence 
of  some  change  in  our  outward  circumstances.  Or  our 
minds  may  be  full  of  some  interesting  occupation  which 
completely  possesses  them  and  so  distracts  them  from  the 
temptations,  without  there  being  anything  meritorious  or 
supernatural  in  it.  It  is  sometimes  true  that  the  world 
helps  us  as  well  as  hinders  us  by  its  multifarious  distrac- 
tions. They  prevent  much  sin,  though  they  spoil  much 
recollection.  It  is  this  which  makes  solitude  so  danger- 
ous except  to  tried  virtue.  But  suppose  a  very  tempest 
of  temptations  is  raging  round  us ;  discouragement  would 
be  as  unreasonable  in  this  case  as  presumption  in  the 
other.  The  very  vehemence  of  the  temptations  is  a  sign 
of  the  devil's  anger ;  and  he  is  far  too  sensible  to  be  angry 


PRESUMPTION    AND   DISCOURAGEMENT.  39 

for  nothing.  When  the  Bible  speaks  of  his  being  angry, 
it  is  added  that  it  is  because  his  time  is  short.  We  must 
have  provoked  him  by  the  way  in  which  we  have  hung 
on  to  God,  or  by  the  marks  of  special  love  which  God 
has  made  to  shine  upon  us,  and  which  Satan  may  be 
able  to  see  more  clearly  than  ourselves.  If  the  tempta- 
tions frighten  us  rather  by  their  obstinacy  and  long  con- 
tinuance, as  if  they  were  determined  not  to  leave  us  until 
they  had  got  a  fall  out  of  us,  we  must  be  on  our  guard 
indeed,  but  with  joy  and  thanksgiving.  For  the  very 
continuance  of  the  temptation  is  a  proof  that  so  far  at 
least  it  has  not  been  consented  to.  The  dog  goes  on 
barking,  says  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  because  he  has  not 
been  let  in.  Furthermore,  which  may  be  the  result  of 
Satan's  natural  sagacity  and  foresight,  an  access  of  new 
and  unusual  temptations  is  often  a  sign  that  a  season  of 
reculiar  grace  is  at  hand.  Therefore,  with  Jacob,  we 
must  wrestle  till  the  dawn. 

5.  At  different  seasons  we  feel  the  effect  of  the  sacra- 
ments more  or  less  decidedly.  Certainly  there  are  times 
when  it  almost  seems  as  if  the  sacraments  were  going  to 
destroy  faith,  so  palpably  do  we  see  and  hear  and  taste 
and  touch  and  handle  and  realize  grace.  This  is  especially 
true  both  of  confession  and  communion.  Nevertheless 
there  is  no  room  for  presumption  here.  The  grace  of 
the  sacraments  is  not  our  merit;  and  the  sensible  effect 
of  them  may  often  be  apparent,  and  yet  its  being  sensible 
arise  actually  from  other  causes,  physical  or  mental.  Or 
God  may  see  that  we  are  unusually  weak  and  so  may 
give  us  an  unusual  grace,  and  make  it  sensible  in  order 
to  inspirit  the  lower  part  of  our  soul  more  effectually. 
Yet  if  the  sacraments  become  insipid,  losing  what  little 


40  PRESUMPTION   AND   DISCOURAGEMENT. 

sensible  savour  they  had  to  our  souls  before,  we  must 
not  be  discouraged  as  if  some  evil  were  befalling  us.  It 
is  no  proof  that  we  are  not  receiving  in  abundant  measure 
the  solid  grace  of  the  sacraments.  The  saints  have  ex- 
perienced similar  things,  even  after  they  had  become 
saints.  And,  moreover,  though  this  perhaps  is  taking 
you  a  little  too  near  the  mountains,  bare  faith  is  by  far 
the  grandest  of  all  spiritual  exercises. 

Perhaps  you  will  say  that  this  is  an  unsatisfactory 
chapter  :  all  negatives.  But  have  you  not  got  far  enough 
to  see  that  inward  peace  is  the  great  thing  you  want  ? 
and  nothing  so  effectually  secures  that,  as  the  wise  and 
skilful  handling  of  these  two  temptations,  presumption 
and  discouragement.  Besides,  if  it  was  a  great  thing  to 
know  what  are  signs  of  progress,  it  is  far  from  a  little 
thing  to  know  what  are  not  signs,  especially  when  thej 
pretend  to  be. 


HOW   TO   MAKE   THE    MOST   OF,   ETC.  41 

CHAPTER  III. 

HOW   CO  MAKE  THE  MOST  OP   OUR   SIGNS   OS  PROGRESS 

I  must  now  suppose  the  soul  of  my  pilgrim  to  have 
some  or  all  of  the  signs  of  progress  enumerated  in  the 
first  chapter.  It  cannot  be  content  with  merely  contem- 
plating them ;  it  must  set  to  work  to  cultivate  them :  and 
how  is  this  to  be  done  ?  This  is  the  question  to  which 
the  present  chapter  must  furnish  an  answer.  But  a 
word  of  general  advice  at  the  outset.  At  this  early  stage 
of  the  devout  life  we  must  be  careful  not  to  take  too 
much  upon  ourselves,  not  to  fly  too  high,  not  to  promise 
God  great  austerities,  nor  burden  ourselves  with  nume- 
rous practices.  We  must  not  be  cowardly  and  faint- 
hearted ;  but  we  must  be  moderate  and  discreet.  To  be 
gentle  with  ourselves  is  not  necessarily  to  be  indulgent 
to  ourselves.  The  punishment  that  is  not  too  much  for 
a  man  would  kill  or  maim  a  child. 

In  the  spiritual  life  there  are  generally  particular  aids 
of  grace  or  means  of  grace  appropriated  to  particular 
epochs;  and  just  as  this  epoch  has  its  own  dangers,  pre- 
sumption and  discouragement,  so  it  has  its  two  aids  or 
means,  recollection  and  fidelity;  and  its  great  work  at 
present  is  to  get  used  to  these  two  things.  In  our  be- 
ginnings, while  our  first  fervours  were  burning  in  our 
hearts,  we  hardly  felt  the  need  or  realized  the  importance 
of  these  things.  They  came  of  themselves.  Impulses 
of  grace  did  it  all ;  and  the  generosity  of  young  love 
4* 


42  HOW   TO    MAKE   THE   MOST   Of 

supplied  for  a  great  deal  of  painful  and  dry  self-discipline. 
Thus  we  were  recollected  without  feeling  it,. and  faithful 
without  knowing  it.     But  those  days  are  passed  away. 

Many  books  have  been  written  upon  recollection,  of 
more  paragraphs  than  I  must  use  words.  To  put  it 
quite  shortly,  recollection  is  a  double  attention  which 
we  pay  first  to  God  and  secondly  to  ourselves ;  and  with- 
out vehemence  or  straining,  yet  not  without  some  painful 
effort,  it  must  be  as  unintermitting  as  possible.  The 
necessity  of  it  is  so  great  that  nothing  in  the  whole  of 
the  spiritual  life,  love  excepted,  is  more  necessary.  We 
cannot  otherwise  acquire  the  habit  of  walking  constantly 
m  the  presence  of  God;  nor  can  we  without  it  steer 
safely  through  the  multitude  of  occasions  of  venial  sin 
which  surround  us  all  day  long.  The  whispered  inspira- 
tions of  the  Holy  Ghost  pass  away  unheard  and  un- 
heeded. Temptations  surprise  us  and  overthrew  us ;  and 
prayer  itself  is  nothing  but  a  time  of  more  nian  usual 
distractions  because  the  time  out  of  prayer  is  not  spent 
in  recollection.  The  very  act  by  which  we  apply  our 
attention  to  prayer  does  little  more  than  empty  our  minds 
of  our  duties,  so  as  to  give  more  room  for  distractions 
than  we  had  while  hand  and  head  and  heart  were  in  the 
occupations  of  daily  life. 

This  habit  of  recollection  is  only  to  be  acquired  by 
degrees.  There  is  no  royal  road  to  it.  We  must  make 
the  occasional  practice  of  silence  one  of  our  mortifica- 
tions, if  we  can  do  so  without  singularity  or  ostentation ; 
and  seeing  that  for  the  most  part  we  all  talk  more  in  con- 
versation than  others  would  wish  us  to  do,  it  would  not 
be  hard  to  mortify  ourselves  in  this  way.  We  should 
also  watch  jealously  any  eagerness  to  hear  news,  and  to 


OUR   SIGNS   OP   PROGRESS.  43 

know  what  is  going  on  in  the  great  world  around  us. 
Until  we  feel  the  presence  of  God  habitually  and  can 
revert  to  Him  easily,  it  is  astonishing  with  what  readi- 
ness other  subjects  can  pre-occupy  and  engross  us;  and  it 
is  just  this  which  we  cannot  afford  to  let  them  do.  News- 
papers keep  not  a  few  back  from  perfection.  Visiting  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  daily  is  another  means  of  acquiring 
recollection.  We  feel  the  visit  long  after  it  is  over.  It 
makes  a  silence  in  our  hearts  and  wraps  an  atmosphere 
around  us,  which  rebuke  the  busy  spirit  of  the  world. 
The  practice  of  retaining  some  spiritual  flower,  maxim 
or  resolution,  from  our  morning's  meditation,  in  order  to 
supply  us  with  matter  for  ejaculatory  prayer  during  the 
day,  is  a  great  help  to  the  same  end.  Bodily  mortifica- 
tion is  a  still  greater,  especially  the  custody  of  the  senses, 
when  we  can  practise  it  unnoticed.  But  the  greatest 
help  of  all  is  to  act  slowly.  Eagerness,  anxiety,  Meli- 
oration, precipitancy,  these  are  all  fatal  to  recollection. 
_jet  us  do  everything  leisurely,  measuredly  and  slowly, 
and  we  shall  soon  become  recollected,  and  mortified  as 
well.  Nature  likes  to  have  much  to  do,  and  to  run  from 
one  thing  to  another;  and  grace  is  just  the  opposite  of 
this. 

I  do  not  know  a  better  picture  of  recollection  than 
Fenelon's  description  of  grace,  which  he  sent  to  a  person 
who  was  just  going  into  a  convent.  "God  would  have 
you  wise,  not  with  your  own  wisdom,  but  with  His.  He 
will  make  you  wise,  not  by  causing  you  to  make  many 
reflections,  b'lt  on  the  contrary  by"  destroying  all  the  un- 
quiet reflections  of  your  false  wisdom.  When  you  shall 
no  longer  act  from  natural  vivacity,  you  will  be  wise  with- 
out your  own  wisdom.     The   movements  of  grace   are 


44  HOW   TO   MAKE   THE    MOST   OP 

simply  ingenuous,  infantine.  Impetuous  nature  thinks 
much  and  speaks  much.  Grace  thinks  little  and  says 
little,  because  it  is  simple,  peaceable,  and  inwardly  re- 
collected. It  accommodates  itself  to  different  charac- 
ters. It  makes  itself  all  to  all.  It  has  no  form  nor  con- 
sistence of  its  own ;  for  it  is  wedded  to  nothing ;  but 
takes  all  the  shapes  of  the  people  it  desires  to  edify.  It 
measures  itself,  humbles  itself,  and  is  pliable.  It  does 
not  speak  to  others  according  to  its  own  fulness,  but  ac- 
cording to  their  present  needs.  It  lets  itself  be  rebuked 
and  corrected.  Above  all  things,  it  holds  its  tongue,  and 
never  says  anything  to  its  neighbour  which  he  is  not  able 
to  bear :  whereas  nature  lets  itself  evaporate  in  the  heat 
of  inconsiderate  zeal."  * 

The  peculiar  rewards  which  recollection  brings  with  U 
bIiow  how  appropriate  a  grace  it  is  to  this  particular  epocli 
of  the  spiritual  life.  The  difficulties  of  prayer  are  more 
easily  surmounted,  and  some  of  its  more  dangerous  delu- 
sions avoided.  It  seems  also  to  prevail  more  with  God 
when  it  is  offered  from  a  recollected  heart,  and  the 
answers  come  quicker  and  more  abundantly.  Sweetness 
and  sensible  devotion  once  more  revisit  the  soul  along 
with  the  peace  in  which  recollection  plunges  it;  and  lib- 
erty of  spirit,  arising  from  the  detachment  from  all  earthly 
things,  which  is  gradually  the  consequence  of  recollection, 
enables  us  to  fly,  rather  than  to  walk,  along  the  path  of 
perfection. 

Without  recollection,  this  liberty  of  spirit  becomes  mere 
license  and  dissipation,  and  our  spiritual  life  nothing  but 
*  presumptuous  imitation  of  the  freedoms  which  the  saints 
have  purchased  by  years  of  heroic  self-restraint  and  dis- 
interested love.  How  many  fall  into  this  pitfall,  whence 
*  Lettres,  tome  v.,  p.  398 


OtR   SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS.  45 

they  are  drawn  out  only  to  go  down  into  Egypt  as  bonds- 
men !  For  recollection  is  itself  a  holy  captivity,  to  which 
we  are  unwilling  to  submit;  but  from  which  we  only  free 
ourselves  to  meet  a  worse  and  harder  slavery.  Vanity 
and  cowardice  are  equally  the  sworn  foes  of  recollection ; 
for  to  vanity  it  is  always  unfolding  pictures  of  self  which 
are  anything  but  flattering,  and  cowardice  is  perpetually 
annoyed  by  its  loud  calls  to  reform  and  mortification,  which 
grow  more  irksome  the  longer  they  are  delayed. 

In  a  word,  at  this  season  of  our  pilgrimage,  external 
things,  though  a  necessary  probation,  are  a  trial  almost 
above  our  grace  to  bear.  They  begin  by  engaging,  pos- 
sessing, pre-occupying  us ;  and  no  sooner  are  our  minds 
completely  filled  by  them,  than  they  beguile  our  hearts, 
and  entice  us  into  a  thousand  human  attachments,  which, 
however  spiritual  their  pretexts  may  be,  are  nothing 
more  than  a  veritable  slavery.  The  mind  and  heart  thus 
•ubdued,  nothing  is  wanting  but  the  third  and  last  pro- 
cess of  corrupting  us,  which  is  accomplished  by  dissipa- 
tion, sensuality,  and  the  maxims  of  the  world.  We  may 
be  sure  then  that  without  recollection  we  shall  make  no 
progress. 

Fidelity  is  the  other  great  aid  of  this  epoch  of  the  spi- 
ritual life.  What  is  meant  by  it  is  this.  Even  although 
we  may  not  be  living  under  a  rule  of  life,  still  as  a  matter 
of  fact  the  duties  and  devotions  of  one  day  very  much 
resemble  those  of  another.  It  is  practically  as  if  we 
promised  God  certain  things,  and  a  particular  round  of 
religious  observances :  so  much  so  that  conscience  re- 
proaches us  whenever  we  causelessly  intermit  any  of  them. 
Thus  these  daily  observances  come  to  be  a  kind  of  condi- 
tion of  our  perseverance.     They  acquire  a  sort  of  sanctity, 


46  HOW  TO   MAKE  THE   MOST  OP 

and  become  the  ordinary  channels  by  which  God  pourc 
His  grace  into  our  souls.  The  tempter  sees  all  this,  and 
estimates  this  daily  perseverance  at  its  just  value.  He 
puts  forth  all  his  strength  to  throw  us  out  of  it,  and 
makes  us  fretful  and  irregular.  He  makes  it  feel  heavy 
to  us  as  a  weight  of  lead.  Or  he  represents  it  to  us  as  a 
dangerous  formality.  Or  he  reminds  us  that  we  are  not 
bound  to  it  either  by  obedience  or  by  vow.  Or  he  con- 
trives that  we  should  read  something  that  was  meant  for 
scrupulous  persons,  and  mistakenly  apply  it  to  ourselves. 
Or  he  makes  us  fancy  that  such  regularity  is  not  good  for 
our  health.  Any  pretext  will  do,  so  long  as  he  can  allure 
us  into  unfaithfulness,  either  to  the  movements  of  grace, 
or  to  our  routine  of  spiritual  exercises.  His  anxiety  to 
make  us  unfaithful  is  the  token  to  us  of  the  paramoun 
importance  of  fidelity. 

The  legitimate  decay  of  our  first  fervours,  when  their 
time  was  accomplished,  has  naturally  thrown  us  more 
upon  ourselves.  This  is  an  anxious  thing,  though  it  was 
always  intended,  and  must  have  come  sooner  or  later. 
But  one  consequence  of  it  is  that  it  has  become  more 
necessary  than  ever  for  us  to  wear  a  yoke  of  some  kind, 
ind  to  learn  what  ascetical  writers  call  the  spirit  of  capti- 
vity. This  is  of  great  value  to  us,  as  it  makes  all  our 
conquests  and  acquisitions  real,  and  preserves  them  for 
us.  Moreover,  we  stand  in  need  of  cheerfulness  to  face 
the  long  outstretching  desert  that  lies  before  us;  and 
nothing  keeps  alive  in  us  a  holy  joy  more  effectually  than 
fidelity  to  grace  and  our  appointed  observances.  The 
sense  of  wretchedness  which  follows  frequent  or  habitual 
laxity,  drives  us  tc  seek  consolation  from  creatures,  and 
to  re-enter  the  world  that  we  may  have  the  pleasure  of 


OUR   S1GNI.   OF   PROGRESS.  47 

forgetting  ourselves  thew  awhile,  and  hiding  ourselves 
from  the  merciful  persecution  of  exciting  grace.  Besides 
which,  the  formation  of  virtuous  habits  is  interrupted  by 
our  unfaithfulness,  and  this  weakens  our  whole  position, 
and  makes  our  future  harder,  while  actual  ground  also  it 
lost  by  the  intermission.  In  a  word,  fidelity  is  the  ra\* 
material  of  perseverance ;  and  to  perceive  this,  is  to  sec 
that  its  importance  cannot  be  exaggerated. 

These  then  are  for  the  present  our  two  guardian  angels, 
recollection  or  a  constant  peaceful  attention  to  God  ana 
the  issues  of  our  own  hearts,  and  fidelity,  as  well  to  the 
inspirations  of  grace  as  to  the  daily  practices  which  coun- 
sel, obedience  or  our  own  choice  have  caused  us  gradually 
to  bind  upon  ourselves.  Bearing  this  in  mind,  I  come  to 
a  direct  answer  to  my  question,  what  are  we  to  do  in  order 
to  cultivate  the  signs  of  progress  which  we  perceive  in 
ourselves  ?     I  will  make  five  recommendations. 

1.  Let  us  at  once  do  something  more  for  God  than  we 
are  doing  at  present.  Let  us  examine  what  we  actually 
do,  and  see  what  it  amounts  to,  and  how  far  it  exacts  any 
effort  from  us.  Let  us  think  whether  we  could  not  bear 
more,  and  yet  not  faint  beneath  the  burden.  Can  we  add 
anything,  without  much  hardship  ?  I  put  this  last  ques- 
tion, because  I  am  sure  that  just  now  it  is  the  safe  course 
to  pursue.  We  shall  be  all  the  more  heroic  for  it  in  the 
end.  There  is  no  heroism  like  discretion.  Watch  the 
Church  canonizing  a  saint,  and  you  will  see  how  this  idea 
haunts  her  and  pursues  her.  But  whatever  we  add,  how- 
ever trifling  it  may  be,  should  be  something  to  be  se- 
riously persevered  in.  It  must  not  be  a  novena,  or  s, 
month's  prayer,  but  something  solid.     And  do  not  l*t  -as 


18  HOW   TO    MAKE   MOST   OF 

be  hasty  in  deciding  that  we  cannot  afford  to  do  more  at 
present.     Be  cautious ;  but  be  generous  as  well. 

2.  There  is  however  something  which  we  can  infallibly 
do )  and  that  is,  put  a  more  interior  spirit  into  what  we 

ctually  do.  Some  men  are  so  shocked  by  the  sight  of 
any  wanton  waste  in  housekeeping,  that  quite  apart  from 
all  mercenary  considerations,  it  makes  them  downright 
melancholy.  We  may  well  be  sorrowful  in  the  spiritual 
world  to  see  the  waste  of  good  words  and  works  for  the 
mere  want  of  an  interior  spirit  and  a  supernatural  inten- 
tion. Men  are  sowing  good  seed  on  rocks  all  the  day 
long.  Alas  that  it  should  be  so  !  For,  with  a  little  pains, 
how  easy  it  seems  to  aim  each  of  our  actions  to  the  greater 
glory  of  God,  and  inwardly  to  unite  our  will  to  His  in 
all  we  plan  or  do  or  suffer.  The  difference  between  an 
action  with  this  interior  intention  and  without  it  may 
almost  be  called  infinite ;  and  the  results  of  the  practice 
to  our  souls  in  the  way  of  holiness  are  immense.  The 
results  of  prayer  and  mortification  are  not  to  be  compared 
with  those  of  an  interior  spirit.  Of  course  time  is  re- 
quired to  mature  them.  They  do  not  manifest  themselves 
in  a  day.  Nothing  is  less  revolutionary  than  the  spiritual 
life.  Its  changes  are  constitutional,  imperceptible  and 
slow.  We  must  not  imagine  we  shall  find  ourselves  saints 
when  we  have  practised  this  interior  spirit  for  a  month. 
But  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  if  we  persevere,  some- 
thing great  will  come  of  it. 

3.  Another  way  of  cultivating  the  signs  of  progress 
which  we  perceive  in  ourselves  is  to  pray  for  a  greater 
desire  of  perfection.  I  repeat  what  I  said  before,  that 
we  do  not  value  this  mere  desire  at  its  proper  price.  If 
we  did,  we  should  make  more  use  of  it ;  for  we  always 


OUR    SIGNS    OF    PROGRESS  49 

Use  what  we  esteem.  It  is  in  reality  praying  against 
worldliness,  accustoming  ourselves  to  unworldly  standards 
and  ideas,  and  destroying  the  old  influence  which  the 
corrupt  maxims  of  the  world  are  still  hiddenly  exercising 
over  our  hearts.  It  conveys  to  us  a  much  truer  and  more 
reverential  appreciation  of  the  majesty  of  God,  of  the 
lovingness  of  grace,  and  of  the  incomparable  pre-eminence 
of  all  spiritual  things.  It  is  true  that  we  seldom  fulfil 
what  we  desire ;  for  it  is  as  of  old,  the  spirit  is  willing, 
but  the  flesh  is  weak.  Nevertheless  what  we  do  accom- 
plish beam  some  proportion  to  what  we  desire,  and  espe* 
cially  to  tLe  vehemence  of  our  desire.  These  are  great 
reasons  for  fostering  this  supernatural  desire  the  most  we 
can.  Rodriguez'  treatise  on  the  value  to  be  set  on  spiritual 
things  is  in  my  judgment  the  most  excellent  part  of  his 
most  precious  book. 

4.  It  is  of  importance  also  not  to  allow  ourselves  to  rest 
J  any  pursuit  except  the  service  of  God.  By  resting  I 
Jiean  feeling  at  home,  reposing  on  what  we  do,  forgetting 
it  is  a  mere  means  even  when  we  do  not  err  so  far  as  to 
mistake  it  for  an  end,  being  contented  with  what  we  are, 
not  pushing  on,  nor  being  conscious  that  we  are  fighting 
a  battle  and  climbing  a  hill.  Nothing  can  excuse  the 
neglect  of  the  duties  of  the  position  in  life  which  God 
has  conferred  upon  us.  All  is  delusive  where  these  are 
not  attended  to  and  made  much  of.  They  are  as  it  were 
private  sacraments  to  each  one  of  us.  They  are  our 
chief,  often  our  sole,  way  of  becoming  saints.  But  while 
we  perform  them  with  all  the  peaceful  diligence  which  the 
presence  of  God  inspires,  we  must  jealously  realize  that 
they  are  means,  not  ends,  subordinate  and  subservient  to 
tiie  great  work  of  our  souls.  No  amount  of  externa] 
5  » 


60  HOW  TO   MAKE   THE   MOST  OF 

work,  not  the  unsleeping  universal  heroism  of  a  Sfc  Vin- 
cent of  Paul,  can  make  up  for  the  want  of  attention  to 
our  own  souls,  such  as  resting  in  our  external  work  would 
imply.  Hence  we  should  be  jealous  of  any  great  pleasure 
in  our  pursuits,  even  when  they  are  works  of  Christian 
mercy  and  love.  It  is  always  a  pleasure  to  do  good;  yet 
it  must  be  watched,  moderated,  and  kept  in  check,  or  it 
will  do  us  a  mischief  before  we  are  aware.  The  thought 
of  eternity  is  a  good  help  to  this.  It  brings  down  the 
pride  of  external  work,  and  takes  the  brightness  and 
colour  out  of  our  successes ;  and  this  is  well,  for  such 
brightness  and  colour  are  nothing  more  than  the  reflection 
of  ourselves  and  our  own  activity. 

5.  There  are  also  practices  of  humility  peculiar  to  this 
stage  of  the  devout  life,  which  we  must  not  omit  to  notice. 
We  must  not  wish  to  forget  our  sins  and  give  ourselves 
up  to  the  exclusive  consideration  of  the  immensity  of 
(rod's  love.  It  is  too  soon  for  that  yet.  Indeed,  in  the 
sense  in  which  we  are  often  inclined  to  take  it,  the  time 
for  it  will  never  come  at  all  on  this  side  the  grave.  We 
should  be  filled  continually  with  wondering  thankfulness 
that  we,  of  all  men,  should  have  been  so  visited  by  God, 
and  so  deluged  with  his  choicest  grace.  It  must  almost 
try  our  faith  that  being  what  we  are,  God  should  have 
been  to  us  what  He  has  been.  0  blessed  incredulity!  0 
happy  soul,  that  has  to  fight  against  this  modest  unbelief! 
We  must  not  be  anxious  about  the  heights  we  are  likely 
to  reach  in  the  spiritual  life.  It  is  a  subject  on  which  we 
ought  never  to  exercise  our  thoughts  at  all.  Whatever 
grace  God  may  intend  to  give  us,  He  has  already  given 
us  far  more  than  we  have  corresponded  to.  Let  us  live 
in  inis  thought,  and  make  a  hermitage  of  it  for  ourselves 


OUR   SIGNS   OP    PROGRESS.  51 

We  nwy  desire  as  much  as  we  please,  so  Jong  as  we  do 
not  calculate  or  contemplate.  Humility  must  give  a  cha- 
racter to  our  very  pursuit  of  virtue.  It  must  not  be  dis 
quieting  or  inordinate.  Virtue  itself  is  a  means,  not  an 
end;  for  virtue  is  not  God,  nor  union  with  God.  Do  not 
think  this  admonition  strange.  It  is  one  that  was  con- 
stantly in  the  mouth  of  St.  Francis  of  Sales.  We  are  so 
bad  that  we  can  make  even  our  pursuit  of  virtue  a  hin- 
drance to  our  love  of  God.  To  sit  quietly  among  our 
own  faults  and  meannesses,  and  to  feel  that  there  is  our 
place,  is  no  slight  thing.  When  Job  sat  down  upon  the 
dunghill,  he  was  to  the  eye  of  God  a  pleasant  picture, 
because  he  was  expressing  the  feelings  and  the  humility 
of  a  creature  in  the  presence  and  under  the  hand  of  his 
Creator.  Pursue  virtue  earnestly,  but  not  eagerly.  Do 
not  waste  time  by  continually  going  back  to  measure  the 
ground  you  have  travelled  over.  Do  not  be  exacting  to 
yourself;  for  that  will  infallibly  lead  first  to  hurry,  and 
then  to  ill  temper,  and  then  to  a  forgetfulness  of  your  own 
badness,  and  then  to  a  doubt  of  God's  goodness.  Be 
slow.  I  shall  have  to  say  this  a  hundred  times;  because 
there  is  not  a  difficulty  or  a  danger  of  the  spiritual  life  in 
which  it  is  not  necessary  advice.  Last  of  all  it  belongs 
to  our  present  humility  on  no  account  to  desire  any  super- 
natural things  to  happen  to  us,  such  as  voices  at  prayer, 
visions,  and  the  like.  A  person  who  desires  such  things 
may  become  a  prey  to  dreadful  delusions  at  any  moment; 
and  even  if  God  really  vouchsafed  such  gifts,  they  wouiu 
be  accompanied  with  great  danger  to  our  unpractijad  and 
not  yet  thoroughly  mortified  souls.  We  should  probably 
wrest  them  to  our  own  destruction.  Yet  it  is  not  an 
nu<?o^amon   temptation   at   this   crisis.      If  St   Therus& 


52  OUR    SIGNS   OF    PROGRESS. 

thought  it  well  to  pray  that  God  would  lead  her  by  the 
common  way,  how  necessary  must  such  common  guidance 
be  to  us !  Still,  I  would  hardly  advise  that  we  should 
pray  for  it;  lest  the  very  prayer  should  fill  our  heads  with 
perilous  conceits.  There  is  no  weakness  or  folly,  which 
need  even  surprise  us  in  self-love. 

In  these  five  ways  we  may  correspond  to  the  graces 
which  God  has  already  given  us,  and  cultivate  those  fair 
fresh  promises  of  growth  in  holiness  which  He  has  allowed 
us  to  exhibit  in  our  souls.  But  I  will  not  leave  the  sub- 
ject of  progress,  without  putting  before  you  an  extract 
which  Orlandini  gives  us  from  the  papers  of  the  Jesuit, 
Peter  Faber,  the-  companion  of  St.  Ignatius.  It  is  a 
common  mistake,  says  Orlandini,  for  men  aiming  at  per- 
fection to  pay  more  attention  to  their  daily  falls  than  to 
the  further  pursuit  of  virtue  and  progress  in  spirituality. 
Of  this  Faber  used  often  to  complain,  saying  that  it  seemed 
as  if  people  took  a  greater  pleasure  in  studying  the  art  of 
mistaking  and  falling,  than  that  of  acquiring  the  beauty 
of  virtue.  He  called  this  a  fraud  in  the  spiritual  life. 
For  although  it  is  a  virtue  to  avoid  vice,  yet  to  be  always 
contemplating  and  deploring  our  sins,  keeps  the  soul  down 
from  higher  and  better  things,  and  retards  its  holy  impe- 
tuosity whereby  it  attempts  great  works  and  rapidly  climbs 
heights  of  virtue,  which  are  of  themselves  fatal  to  the 
vices  we  less  wisely  try  to  diminish  by  this  perpetual  in- 
spection and  review  of  self. 


THE    SPIRIT    _N    WHICH   WE   SERVE   GOD 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    SPIRIT   IN   WHICH   WE    SERVE   GOD. 

Theory  is  not  much  without  practice ;  yet  without  a 
good  theory  practice  for  the  most  part  is  not  itself  worth 
much,  for  it  is  neither  fruitful  nor  enduring.  If  this  is 
true  in  most  things,  it  is  especially  so  in  the  spiritual 
life.  Now  God  is  to  us  very  much  what  we  are  to  Him. 
With  the  innocent  Thou  shalt  be  innocent,  and  with  the 
perverse  Thou  shalt  be  perverted.  Having  then  observed 
in  ourselves  certain  signs  of  progress,  been  put  upon  our 
guard  against  certain  pretended  signs,  and  seen  what  we 
can  do  to  cultivate  the  promise  we  have  observed,  it  is  de- 
sirable that  we  should  clearly  understand  in  what  spirit  it 
is  that  we  commit  ourselves  to  God,  and  pledge  ourselves 
to  serve  Him.  A  clear  idea  is  a  great  help  to  us,  and 
consistency  is  no  slight  part  of  perseverance.  Let  us 
then  thoroughly  understand  what  we  are  about,  what  we 
are  promising,  what  sort  of  a  life  it  will  lead  to,  and  what 
God  may  reasonably  expect  of  us  after  our  own  voluntary 
professions. 

What  I  have  to  show  then  in  this  chapter  is  that  with- 
out liberty  of  spirit  we  can  never  be  perfect,  that  there 
is  no  true  or  safe  liberty  of  spirit  which  does  not  follow 
as  a  consequence  from  the  spirit  in  which  we  serve  God, 
and  hence  that  the  only  right  spirit  in  which  to  serve 
Him  is  one  of  self-sacrifice  and  generosity.  When  we 
have  mastered  this  chapter  and  turned  it  into  practice, 
5* 


54  THE   SPIRIT  IN   WHICH   WE   SERVE  GOD, 

we  are  already  miles  beyond  where  we  were  before. 
People  never  go  far  enough,  unless  they  start  with  a  clear 
view  of  how  far  they  ought  to  go. 

I  will  begin  with  the  spirit  in  which  most  men  serve 
God. 

There  are  many  difficulties  in  life.  Some  men  have 
more,  some  less.  But  the  most  fearful  of  all  no  one  can 
get  rid  of,  namely,  that  of  having  to  deal  with  God.  To 
have  to  deal  with  God  is  a  necessity  as  awful  as  it  is  in 
dubitable  and  unavoidable.  Contrast  His  reality  with  oui 
untruth,  His  power  with  our  weakness,  His  law  with  oui 
disobedience.  Enumerate  His  known  perfections,  remem 
bering  that  there  is  no  great  or  small  with  Him  becauso 
of  His  immensity  and  completeness.  Analyze  His  tre- 
mendous sanctity,  and  meditate  separately  on  every 
element  of  it,  its  awful  minuteness,  its  unbearable 
purity,  its  unspeakable  sensitiveness,  its  terrific  jealousy. 
On  our  side  there  is  a  multitudinous  fertility,  day  and 
night,  of  thought,  word,  work,  omission  and  intention : 
on  His  side,  the  noting  of  all  this,  the  stern  requisition 
of  an  invariably  pure  intention,  the  strict  account,  the 
severity  of  the  punishment,  the  eternity  of  the  doom,  and 
the  infallible  inevitableness  of  it  all. 

His  court  in  heaven  we  could  not  see  and  live,  be- 
cause of  its  radiant  purity.  The  strong  angels  tremble 
and  are  shaken ;  our  Lady  is  all  abased ;  and  the  Sacred 
Heart  of  our  Lord  Himself  is  flooded  with  reverential 
fear. 

Along  the  line  of  Sacred  History  there  gleam  like 
lights  the  dreadful  chastisements  which  God  has  inflicted 
on  venial  sins.  Moses,  and  David,  the  man  of  God  whom 
the  lion  slew  and  Oza  who  upheld  the  swaying  Ars  — 


THE    SPIRIT    IN    WHICH    WE    SERVE   GOD.    •        ft3 

these  examples  are  overwhelming  disclosures  of  the  sanc- 
tity of  God ;  and  the  notable  thing  is7  that  what  seems  to 
anger  God  in  these  faults  is  the  want  of  wholeness  of 
heart  with  Him.  Let  us  look  at  our  past  lives  by  this 
light,  and  have  we  not  cause  to  tremble ;  or  even  at  our 
present  practice,  and  have  we  a  right  to  be  without  fear '/ 
What  a  thought  for  us  that  He  knows  at  this  moment 
how  we  are  to  stand  to  all  eternity,  what  pains  we  are  to 
endure,  or  what  bliss  we  shall  enjoy.  It  is  enough  to 
take  away  our  breath  to  know  that  this  is  known,  even 
chough  we  still  are  free.  Surely  nothing  can  be  con- 
ceived more  awful  than  having  to  deal  with  God. 

What  then  follows  from  this  ?  Undoubtedly  nothing 
less  than  these  five  simple  truths. 

1.  That  His  service  is  our  most  important,  if  not  our 
sole,  work.  This  is  so  obvious  that  it  requires  only  to 
be  stated.     Time  and  words  would  alike  be  wasted  in 

he  attempt  to  prove  it.  Yet  alas !  even  spiritual  persons 
need  to  be  reminded  of  this  elementary  truth.  Let  us 
subject  ourselves  to  a  brief  examination  upon  it.  Aro 
we  thoroughly  convinced  it  is  true  ?  Has  our  past  life 
shown  proof  of  it  ?  Is  our  present  life  modelled  upon  it  ? 
Are  we  taking  pains  that  our  future  life  shall  be  so  ? 
What  is  the  result  when  we  compare  our  worldly  promp- 
titude and  industry  with  our  preference  of  the  service  of 
God  over  all  other  things  ?  Are  we  in  any  way  on  the 
look-out  for  His  greater  glory  or  our  own  greater  union 
with  Him  ?  Is  it  plain  at  first  sight  that  we  have  no 
object  or  pursuit  so  engrossing  and  so  decidedly  paramount 
as  the  service  of  God  ? 

2.  That  the  Spirit  in  which  ws  serve  Him  should  be 
entirely  without  reserve.     Need  I  prove  this  ?     What  if 


56  THE   SPIRIT   IN    WHICH    WE   SERVE   UOD. 

to  be  reserved  ?  Can  there  be  reserves  with  God  ?  Cau 
His  sovereignty  be  limited,  or  our  love  of  Him  ever  reach 
the  measure  of  enough  ?  But  have  we  no  reserve  with 
Him  now?  Is  there  really  no  corner  of  our  heart  over 
which  He  is  not  absolute  Lord  ?  Does  He  ask  of  us 
freely  what  He  wills,  and  do  we  do  our  best  to  give  Him 
all  He  asks  ?  Have  we  no  implicit  bargain  or  condition 
with  Him  that  He  is  only  to  go  so  far  with  us  and  no 
further  ?  Is  our  outward  life  utterly  and  unconditionally 
dependent  on  Him  ?  And  if  it  is,  is  the  kingdom  of  our 
inward  intentions  reposing  peaceably  beneath  His  un- 
questioned sceptre  ? 

3.  That  our  ruling  passion  should  be  horror  of  sin, 
even  venial  sin,  and  unworthy  imperfections.  Now  do 
we  so  much  as  know  what  this  feeling  means  ?  When 
we  read  of  it  in  spiritual  books,  does  it  not  sound  to  u? 
like  an  unreal  exaggeration  ?  Have  we  even  heartily 
prayed  for  an  increased  hatred  of  sin  ?  Are  there  not 
many  evils  which  afflict  us  far  more  keenly  ?  Are  we  at- 
tracted to  Gethsemane,  and  to  the  mysterious  vision  of 
our  Master  crushed,  like  the  grapes  in  a  wine-press, 
beneath  the  mental  horror  of  the  world's  sins?  Until 
we  know  something  of  this  horror  of  sin,  supernatural 
principles  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  taken  possession  of 
our  minds. 

4.  That  we  should  avoid,  as  if  it  were  sacrilege,  any 
slovenliness  in  our  dealings  with  God.  Surely  the  terror 
of  His  majesty,  as  well  as  the  immensity  of  His  love, 
should  make  this  one  of  our  fundamental  axioms.  There 
is  a  personal  contempt  about  slovenliness  which  makes  it 
perfectly  horrible  to  couple  even  the  idea  of  it  with  God. 
It  is  far  more  truly  a  practical  atheism,  than  many  gross 


THE   SPIRIT   IN   WHICH   WE    SER  7E   GOD.  57 

Bins  into  which  the  vehemence  cf  our  guilty  passions  may 
betray  us.  Yet  how  do  matters  stand  with  our  medita- 
tion, vocal  prayer,  mass,  confession,  and  communion? 
And  if  it  be  so  with  our  directly  spiritual  duties,  what 
shall  be  said  of  those  occupations  of  our  calling  out  of 
which  we  are  to  work  our  salvation,  and  which  can  only 
be  sanctified  by  extreme  purity  of  intention  ? 

5.  That  the  only  one  fact  of  any  especial  importance 
to  us  is  whether  we  are  honestly  serving  God  or  not. 
Shall  we  be  saved  or  not!  The  whole  of  life's  solem- 
nity and  seriousness  resolves  itself  into  that  one  over- 
whelming doubt.  We  should  have  nothing  so  much  at 
heart  as  this.  Nay  rather  we  should  have  nothing  at 
heart  but  this.  How  dead  to  self  we  should  soon  become 
under  the  shadow  of  this  universal,  life-long  question ! 
Yet  how  does  the  case  really  stand  ?  A  little  wrong,  a 
trifling  injustice,  an  insulting  word,  a  piquing  of  our  self- 
love  and  personal  vanity,  stirs  us  more  effectually  and 
interests  us  more  really  than  the  chances  of  being  lost  or 
saved.  And  yet  we  are  aiming  at  a  devout  life !  And 
yet  we  dream  that  we  are  serving  God ! 

It  is  plain,  without  speaking  of  high  thing:  or  of  fer- 
vent devotions,  that  merely  to  carry  out  in  the  service 
of  God  these  five  self-evident  truths,  we  must  serve  Him 
in  a  spirit  of  generosity  and  self-sacrifice.  But  the  spirit 
of  generosity  may  be  looked  at  in  two  ways;  as  it  exists 
in  our  own  hearts,  and  as  it  actually  inspires  our  conduct 
We  are  thinking  of  it  just  now  in  the  first  point  of  view. 
Its  victory  over  our  external  actions  is  a  work  of  time  and 
combat.  It  will  not  only  be  long  before  it  is  achieved, 
but  in  point  of  fact  it  never  will  be  achieved  to  the  extent 
which  we  ourselves  see  to  be  possible.     What  I  want  to 


58  THE   SPIRIT   IN   WHICH   WE    SERVE   GOD. 

impress  upon  you  is  that  even  as  a  theory  it  is  of  immense 
utility.  Unless  we  see  clearly  what  it  is  to  be  generous 
with  God,  and  have  steadfastly  determined  to  be  so,  there 
is  no  likelihood  that  the  slightest  degree  of  generosity  will 
actuate  our  external  conduct.  What  we  want  in  our 
present  position  is  that  we  shall  not  consciously  at 
least  have  any  reserves  with  God,  that  we  shall  set  no 
definable  bounds  either  to  our  love  of  Him  or  to  our 
sacrifice  for  Him,  that  we  shall  not  fix  our  eye  on  any 
imaginary  point  of  future  perfection  and  say  that  when 
we  are  arrived  at  that  we  shall  be  content,  that  as  we 
read  or  hear  of  the  states  and  stages  of  the  spiritual  life 
and  the  practices  of  courageous  mortification,  we  shall 
never  feel  of  any  of  them  that  it  will  never  be  a  practical 
matter  to  us.  You  see  I  am  putting  it  all  in  the  nega- 
tive. I  am  not  saying  you  shall  positively  determine  at 
some  future  time  to  do  this  or  to  suffer  that.  I  should 
not  wish  it.  I  am  only  saying  you  must  not  exclude  as 
impossible  or  impracticable  any  amount  of  perfection. 
You  must  have  no  reserve.  You  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  future.  You  have  to  follow  the  present  grace, 
and  then  the  grace  which  shall  present  itself  next,  and 
then  the  grace  after  that,  and  so  on,  till  God  draws  you 
to  a  nearness  to  Himself  which  it  would  frighten  you  now 
even  to  picture  to  yourself.  You  must  abandon  yourself 
to  grace  and  follow  its  lead.  But  unless  you  see  the 
reasonableness  of  this,  and  make  up  your  mind  to  it 
steadily  beforehand,  you  are  quite  sure  not  to  do  it.  This 
is  what  I  mean  by  having  a  good  theory  of  generosity. 
If  you  have  not  the  theory  now,  you  will  never  have  the 
practice  hereafter. 

Undeniable  as  the  common  sense  of  this  may  be,  cor 


THE   SPIRIT   IN    WHICH   WE    SERVE   GOD.  59 

rupt  nature  will  often  plead  eloquently  against  it.  Con- 
sequently this  theory  must  not  be  merely  a  loving  instinct 
in  the  heart  or  an  habitual  resolution  in  the  will.  You 
must  verify  it  as  an  intellectual  conviction.  You  must 
have  persuaded  yourself  of  it.  If  not,  when  temptation 
comes,  you  will  tremble  from  head  to  foot  with  indecision, 
and  end  by  fainting.  It  is  well,  therefore,  to  make  it  a 
frequent  subject  of  meditation.  You  must  accustom 
yourself  to  true  views  about  the  Gospel.  You  must  see 
that,  all  through,  it  is  a  religion  of  suffering,  of  mortifi- 
cation, of  self-sacrifice,  of  consuming  love,  of  self-forget- 
ting zeal,  of  self-crucifying  unio^,  in  a  word,  it  is  the 
religion  of  the  Cross  and  the  Crwcified.  You  must  get 
well  into  you  the  truth  so  unpalatable  to  nature  that  self- 
denial  is  of  its  essence,  and  that  it  must  be  daily  self- 
denial,  not  only  that  we  may  be  perfect,  but  even  that 
we  may  be  our  dear  Lord's  disciples. 

In  truth,  Jesus  is  our  model,  of  whom  the  Holy  Ghost 
bade  the  apostle  say  that  He  pleased  not  Himself.  Fix 
your  eyes  on  this  Divine  Exemplar;  familiarize  yourself 
with  the  mysteries  of  His  Sacred  Humanity,  until  the 
spirit  of  them  passes  into  you.  Learn  the  secret  of  His 
Infancy,  of  His  eighteen  years  Hidden  Life,  of  His  three 
years  Ministry,  of  His  week's  Passion,  of  His  forty  days 
of  Risen  Life.  Where  is  there  any  self?  Is  it  not  all 
sacrifice  in  detail  ?  Is  not  all  unreserved  generosity  for 
the  glory  of  His  Father,  and  the  perishing  souls  of  men  ? 
This  unreservedness  is  the  grand  characteristic  of  the 
Incarnation.  Look  at  His  Passion.  Take  His  Divinity 
for  the  first  point  of  your  meditation  on  it.  How  did  He 
use  it  ?  He  restrained  it  from  consoling  Him ;  He  let  it 
itrengthen  Him  that  He  might  suffer  more,  even  beyond 


60  THE   SPIRIT   IN   WHICH    WE   SERVE  GOD. 

the  ordinary  limits  of  human  endurance ;  it  was  all  the 
while  actually  giving  physical  strength  and  vigour  to  His 
executioners  to  torment  Him  with,  and  its  concurrence 
was  the  weight  and  the  force  of  the  burning  lash.  Then 
look  at  His  soul.  In  it  He  foresaw  His  passion  all  His 
life  long,  so  that  it  was  a  fear  and  a  suffering  of  three- 
and-thirty  years.  Gethsemane  was,  as  it  were,  the  cruci- 
fixion of  His  Soul,  as  Calvary  was  of  His  Body ;  and  all 
through  the  Passion  His  Soul  was  pierced  by  woes  and 
humiliations  which  have  never  been  surpassed  or  equalled 
for  continuity,  variety,  and  keenness.  Then  cast  an  eye 
upon  His  Sacred  Body.  Nothing  is  held  back.  Heart, 
Hands,  Feet,  Eyes,  Mouth,  Back,  Heart,  all  have  their 
own  torture,  all  contribute  their  own  peculiar  agony  to 
the  grand  Redeeming  Sacrifice.  His  Blood  is  shed  quite 
wastefully,  over  the  olive  roots  of  Gethsemane,  on  the 
pavement  of  Jerusalem,  into  the  braided  thongs  and  toe 
knotted  lashes,  all  along  the  way  of  the  Cross,  up  Cal- 
vary, and  on  the  holy  wood  of  the  Cross,  and  it  is  sbed 
until  the  emptied  Heart  has  not  another  drop  to  give. 
Wow  compare  all  this  with  our  own  mean  reserve  and 
half-heartedness !  Towards  God  what  scanty  prayers, 
what  careless  examens,  what  heartless  confessions,  what 
cold  communions,  what  human  respect,  what  grievous 
sins !  Towards  our  neighbours,  how  selfish  in  action,  how 
unkind  in  word,  how  censorious  in  thought!  Towards 
ourselves,  how  indulgent,  how  conceited,  what  pampering 
of  our  body,  what  worship  of  our  will ! 

The  great  lesson  of  the  Crucifix  is  whole-heartedness 
with  God,  the  spirit  of  joyous  abandonment  and  generous 
sacrifice.  We  may  get  a  clearer  idea  of  it  if  we  look  at 
it  from  another  point  of  view.     We  are  quite  oapabii*  of 


THE    SPIRIT    IN    WHICH    WE    SERVE    GOD.  61 

ronceiving  a  man,  a  saint  he  could  not  be,  exempt  from 
ftll  actual  sin,  and  observing  to  the  full  all  the  command- 
ments in  tlie  letter,  and  yet  without  generosity  to  God. 
Lt  is.  of  course,  a  theological  impossibility ;  but  wc  are 
capable  of  conceiving  it  This  sinless  man  might,  with- 
out breaking  any  commandment,  be  occasionally  dull- 
hearted  with  God,  grudging  Him  heroic  service  and 
counsels  which  did  not  oblige.  He  might  be  sometimes 
inclined  to  bargain  with  God,  and  to  think  he  had  now 
done  quite  as  much  as  was  discreet.  Now  and  then  he 
might  give  way  to  the  feeling  that  his  obedient  life  was 
irksome,  because  of  the  unwearied  and  unremitting  sacri- 
fice which  it  entailed.  At  intervals  he  might  even  have 
tits  of  lukewarmness,  in  matters  plainly  short  of  sin.  He 
might  look  on  Jesus  without  any  glow  of  enthusiasm, 
and  his  acts  of  love  might  up  to  a  certain  point  be  remiss. 
Hi  this  is  possibly  and  imaginably  consistent  with  entire 
smlessness.  Yet  what  is  the  disposition  of  this  unsinning 
monster,  but  the  portrait  of  a  devil,  or  something  very 
like  it?  And  why,  except  for  the  absence  of  all  gene- 
rosity with  God?  It  is  just  this  which  stamps,  not  the 
unchristian,  but  the  anti-christian  character  upon  it. 

Of  a  truth  there  has  been  a  pure  creature,  who  has 
b^en  exempt  from  every  shade  of  sin ;  and  yet,  if  we  may 
pay  so,  sinlessness  is  not  her  highest  prerogative,  even 
independent  of  the  Divine  Maternity.  Cast  an  eye  over 
her  sixty-three  years,  and  you  will  see  what  is  meant  by 
generosity  towards  God  and  unreservedness  with  Him. 
Her  first  act  of  love  and  use  of  reason  at  the  very  moment 
cf  the  Immaculate  Conception  was  an  entire  and  joyous 
surrender  of  herself  to  God,  and  it  was  never  retracted 
for  sa  much  as  an  instant  through  all  those  years.  The 
6 


62  THE   SPIRIT   IN   WHICH   WE   SERVE   GOD 

thought  never  crossed  her  of  being  aught  else  than  all  for 
God.  So  when  she  made  her  vow  of  virginity,  as  the 
most  perfect  offering  to  the  infinite  sanctity  of  God,  she 
sacrificed  apparently  the  one  object  which  was  nearest  and 
dearest  to  every  Jewish  maiden's  heart,  even  the  hope  of 
being  the  Mother  of  the  Messias.  Then  again  when  she 
consented,  in  obedience  to  those  who  had  a  right  to  com- 
mand her  consent,  to  espouse  St.  Joseph,  what  an  utter 
abandonment  of  self  it  was !  Even  her  consent  to  the 
Incarnation,  and  her  acceptance  of  the  dignity  of  Mother 
of  God,  were  acts  of  generosity,  not  only  because  of  the 
unequalled  suffering  they  involved,  but  also  because  of 
the  violence  she  was  called  upon  to  do  to  her  deep  humi- 
lity. Her  presentation  of  Jesus  in  the  temple,  and  her 
acceptance  of  Simeon's  prophecy,  were  equally  examples 
of  her  self-forgetting  generosity  with  God.  Amidst  all 
the  trials  of  the  Sacred  Infancy  she  called  for  no  miracles 
to  alleviate  her  cares.  In  the  Holy  House  of  Nazareth 
her  life  was  nothing  else  than  a  perpetual  oblation  of 
Jesus  and  of  herself  to  God.  Her  poverty  was  perfect ; 
neither  did  she  seek  for  spiritual  consolations,  but  was 
contented  with  the  almost  unbroken  silence  of  her  Divine 
Son,  when  she  longed  for  Him  to  speak.  She  parted 
with  Him  unselfishly  when  He  went  upon  His  three 
years'  ministry,  which,  even  when  she  followed  Him,  af 
least  broke  up  and  rendered  desultory  her  intercourse 
with  Him.  She  consented  to  His  Passion,  and  co-ope- 
rated with  Him  in  all  its  steps.  She  spent  fifteen  years 
of  resigned  desolation  upon  earth,  when  He  had  ascended, 
and  like  a  magnet  had  almost  drawn  her  Immaculate 
Heart  up  to  heaven  with  His  own.  She  gave  Him  away 
to  the  Eternal  Father  in  the  Asceosioji,  *fc<!  without  a 


THE   SPIRIT   IN   WHICH   WE   SERVE   GOD.  63 

«urmur  took  John  for  Jesus.  How  wonderful  must  her 
detachment  have  been,  who  could  detach  herself  even  from 
the  presence  of  our  dearest  Lord,  and  which  had  nothing, 
not  even  Himself,  that  it  did  not  generously  abandon  to 
the  will  of  God  ! 

Such  is  the  spirit  in  which,  according  to  our  measure 
and  degree,  we  must  resolve,  by  the  help  of  His  grace,  to 
serve  Almighty  God;  and  among  the  many  reasons  why 
this  should  be  so,  I  must  notice  one,  because  it  belongs 
to  our  present  reflections.  We  have  heard  much  of  liberty 
of  spirit,  and  we  have  read  that  without  it  we  can  never 
reach  perfection.  Every  one  agrees  in  saying  great  things 
about  liberty  of  spirit,  and  in  desiring  it  for  himself.  But 
few  have  any  clear  notion  of  what  they  themselves  mean 
by  liberty  of  spirit :  and  for  the  most  part,  when  they  sup- 
pose they  are  exercising  that  liberty,  they  are  in  reality 
only  making  free  with  God  and  their  religious  duties  in 
a  way  which  will  be  sharply  visited  on  them  at  last. 
Liberty  of  spirit  does  not  then  consist  in  being  free  from 
a  rule  of  life,  and  not  having  set  duties  for  set  times,  nor 
in  changeableness  with  devotions,  pious  books  and  the 
like,  nor  in  the  absence  of  self-accusation  when  we  neglect 
any  of  our  exercises,  nor  in  not  making  a  scruple  of  what 
other  good  people  make  a  scruple,  nor  in  being  off-hand 
and  careless  with  the  details  of  our  actions  on  the  ground 
that  God  looks  at  the  heart,  nor  in  addressing  hot  words 
to  God,  and  courting  His  merciful  caresses,  when  we  are 
taking  no  sort  of  pains  to  mortify  ourselves  and  keep  our 
passions  undsr.  All  this  is  slovenliness  and  impertinence, 
not  Christian  liberty  of  spirit.  Yet  how  many  do  we  see 
who  by  slightly  and  unconsciously  degrading  God  in  their 
own  ideas,  and    then  making  themselves  very  much  at 


64  THE    SPIRIT   TN    WHICH   WE    SERVE   GOD 

home  with  His  service,  imagine  that  they  are  enjoying 
the  breadth  and  room  and  invigorating  air  of  liberty, 
when  they  are  all  the  while  debauching  the  very  princi- 
ples of  reverence  and  religiousness  in  their  own  minds,  and 
are  drinking  venial  sin,  as  thirsty  beasts  drink  water  I 

If,  however,  it  is  not  easy  always  to  recognize  liberty 
of  spirit,  and  to  distinguish  it  from  rudeness,  irreverence, 
or  an  unscrupulous  self  trust,  the  difficulty  is  very  much 
narrowed  by  reflecting  that  in  most  cases  we  can  tell  what 
is  not  liberty  of  spirit.  For  no  one  can  by  any  possibility 
have  a  true  liberty  of  spirit,  who  is  not  serving  God  in 
a  spirit  of  generosity.  Now  it  is  easy  for  us  to  know 
whether  we  are  doing  or  trying  to  do  this  or  not ;  and  ii 
the  answer  be  in  the  negative,  then  we  may  be  infallibly 
certain  that  anything  about  us  which  looks  like  liberty  of 
spirit  is  in  reality  something  else,  and  probably  some- 
thing highly  undesirable.  It  is  a  help  to  us  then  to  know 
so  much  as  this,  that  if  we  have  not  generosity,  we  have 
not  liberty.*  The  one  answers  to  the  other.  Or  at  least 
without  generosity  there  can  be  no  liberty,  though  irom 
interior  trials  there  may  at  particular  seasons  be  generosity 
without  liberty. 

The  spirit  of  Jesus  is  a  spirit  of  liberty.  Scripture  has 
passed  it  into  a  Christian  proverb,  that  where  the  spirit 
of  God  is,  there  is  liberty.  When  first  it  came  into  the 
world,  it  was  a  spirit  of  liberty  from  the  bondage  of  tear 
and  dark  superstition  which  had  reigned  over  the  heathen, 
from  the  narrowness  and  doubt  and  grovelling  appetites 
of  the  Greek  and  Roman  unbelievers,  and  from  the  slavery 
of  ceremonial  and  positive  precept  which  had  schooled  the 

*  I  am  not  speaking  of  liberty  in  the  theological  or  metaphysical 
*enge;  but  of  liberty  of  spirit,  a  characteristic  of  Christian  piety. 


THE    SPIRIT   IN   WHICH   WE    SERVE   GOD.  65 

Jews  for  our  Saviour's  coming.  It  13  a  spirit  of  liberty 
Because  it  is  a  law  of  love,  not  because  it  is  love  only,  but 
because  it  is  a  law  also,  and  a  law  of  love.  It  is  liberty 
because  of  the  munificent  superabundance  of  the  Great 
Sacrifice,  and,  above  all  other  reasons,  because  Jesus  is 
God. 

Hence  we  might  naturally  infer  that  the  same  liberty 
would  penetrate  into  our  most  intimate  relations  with  our 
Lord,  and  give  a  character  to  every  phase  of  the  spiritual 
.ife.  And  such  is  in  truth  the  case.  For  Christian 
liberty  consists  in  freedom  from  sin,  as  degrading  to  our 
nature  and  destructive  of  self-respect,  as  in  itself  full  of 
wretchedness,  as  the  most  grinding  of  tyrannies,  and 
tbove  all  as  an  offence  against  an  infinitely  good  God 
It  consists  in  freedom  from  the  penalties  of  sin,  such  as 
God's  anger,  hell,  and  an  evil  death  But  it  is  also  free- 
dom from  worldliness,  that  is,  from  a  heart  set  on  the 
world,  from  a  mind  full  of  it,  from  low  views,  and  from 
that  series  of  successive  disappointments  which  befall 
every  man  who  finds  comfort  in  the  world.  It  is  a  free- 
dom from  slavery  to  other  men;  for  it  makes  persecution 
nothing  more  to  us  than  a  means  of  meriting,  and  calumny 
x  sweet  likeness  to  Jesus,  while  it  begins  the  work  which 
is  only  to  end  with  the  last  breath  we  draw,  deliverance 
from  human  respect.  But  most  of  all,  liberty  of  spirit 
is  freedom  from  self;  for  how  shall  the  freedman  of 
Christ  sink  to  be  the  slave  of  self?  To  be  free  from 
littleness,  from  self-love,  from  secret  meanness,  and  from 
the  haunting  of  our  own  shame,  this  is  to  be  free  indeed, 
and  there  is  no  other  freedom  which  deserves  the  name. 

in  one  word  then,  liberty  of  spirit  consists  not  at  arl 
in  being  more  free  with  God  or  less  anxious  in  the  dis- 
6*  E 


66  THE    SPIRIT   IN   WHICH   WE   SER  FE   GOD. 

charge  of  our  spiritual  duties,  but  in  this  single  thing, 
detachment  from  creatures.  Liberty  and  detachment 
are  one  and  the  same  thing.  He  is  free  who  is  detached, 
and  he  only.  And  it  is  plain  that  no  one  can  be  detached, 
who  is  not  generous  also ;  for  generosity  consists  in  de« 
taching  ourselves,  always  at  cost  and  with  pain,  from 
creatures  for  the  sake  of  the  Creator. 

Oh  that  we  were  all  made  free  with  this  heavenly  free« 
dom  !  For  there  is  nothing  to  which  the  glory  of  a  free 
soul  can  be  compared  but  the  worshipful  magnificence  of 
God  Himself.  The  soul  detached  stands  on  a  height  and 
breathes  the  air  of  heaven.  Creation  lies  far  below  it, 
like  a  speck  in  space.  Angels  and  saints  are  its  co".rt 
and  purity  its  atmosphere.  Jesus  is  its  brother,  its  com- 
panion, and  its  likeness.  Its  will  is  always  done,  beoau.se 
it  is  always  with  the  will  of  God ;  so  that  in  this  sense 
it  is  omnipotent  as  He  is.  Its  wisdom  is  supernatural, 
and  unintelligible  to  earthly  minds.  Its  peace  is  endless, 
profound  and  above  the  reach  of  foes.  Its  joy  is  abso- 
lutely in  the  unspeakably  joyous  life  of  God,  and  in 
nothing  short  of  it.  0  how  wonderful  is  the  dignity  of 
those  who  have  been  ransomed  by  the  Precious  Blooa  of 
Jesus,  and  so  sweetly  justified  by  His  victorious  Kesur- 
rection  !  The  heavens  are  not  so  high  as  is  their  liberty, 
nor  the  sea  so  deep,  nor  the  plains  of  earth  so  wide 
Poverty  cannot  soil  it,  grief  eannct  f^dden  it,  death  can- 
not end  it.  0  beyond  all  words  that  an  over-full  heart 
can  utter,  blessed,  thrice  blessed  be  God,  for  the  freedom 
wherewith  Christ  hath  made  us  free  t 


WHAT   HOLDS    US   BACK.  6' 

CHAPTER  V. 

WHAT   HOLDS   US   BACK 

It  seems  now  as  if  we  had  got  our  course  clearly  laid 
down,  and  had  received  our  instructions  as  to  the  spirit  in 
which  we  should  serve  God.  We  are  fairly  out  of  har- 
bour, but  how  is  it  that  we  are  not  making  way?  We 
Bee  others  around  us  in  full  course,  but  no  breeze  is  fill- 
ing our  sails.  Whether  it  is  that  we  are  still  under  the 
influence  of  the  shore,  or  whether  it  be  that  something 
else  is  in  fault,  it  is  clear  that  we  are  not  catching  the 
wind.  Such  is  the  common  complaint  ef  many  souls  at 
this  period.  Something  holds  them  back  j  and  they  do 
not  all  at  once  see  what  it  is.  Our  business  now  is  to 
discover  these  secret  obstacles,  and  see  how  to  deal  with 
them. 

Our  first  step  must  be  to  examine  the  symptoms  which 
betray  that  all  is  not  right  with  us.  First  of  all  we  expe- 
rience a  want  of  power  in  resisting  temptations,  in  going 
through  with  our  penances,  and  in  being  faithful  to  our 
devotional  observances.  Then  we  feel  a  want  of  elasti- 
city in  surprises  which  come  upon  us,  in  changes,  in 
trials  of  temper,  in  the  management  of  exterior  duties, 
and  the  reconciliation  of  them  with  devotion  and  the 
interior  life.  Moreover  we  are  conscious  of  a  certain  defi- 
ciency of  inward  light.  Our  examinations  of  conscience 
become  hazy  and  dim.  An  inclination  to  scruple  an«j 
littleness  grows  upon  us,  and  we  seem  to  lose  the  sight  of 
God  which  we  bad  before,  and  which,  imperfect  as  it  was, 


68  WHAT   HOLDS   US   BACK. 

was  a  true  illumination.  There  is  a  vagueness  about  out 
spintnal  combat,  which  we  feel  requires  more  definiteness 
as  well  as  more  vigour.  And  added  to  all  this,  a  sort  ot 
drowsy  laziness  is  creeping  over  us  like  the  oppression 
rf  a  dream. 

Something  is  wrong,  it  is  clear;  the  question  is,  what? 
Here  are  three  wants,  power,  elasticity,  and  inward  light, 
*o  be  accounted  for.  They  arise  from  various  causes. 
Partly  they  are  the  result  of  the  attention  we  have  been 
almost  obliged  to  pay  to  ourselves  and  the  interior  expe- 
diences of  our  souls  in  these  early  stages  of  the  spiritual 
life.  Self-inspection  is  always  dangerous  even  when  it  is 
necessary ;  and  consequently  it  is  never  to  be  practised 
Without  its  proper  accompanying  antidote.  Self-knowledge 
its  both  a  grace  and  a  necessity  and  a  blessing ;  yet  none 
ot  these  things  prevent  its  being  a  danger  also.  The 
dagger  is  in  its  leading  us  to  unreality,  sensitiveness, 
atfeetation,  and  that  which  is  the  most  disgusting  of  vices 
in  the  spiritual  life,  sentimentality.  It  may  be  also  that 
we  have  not  exercised  faith  sufficiently,  and  this  may 
account  for  the  three  wants  in  question.  We  have  gone 
by  feeling,  or  by  sweetness,  or  by  impulse,  rather  than 
by  faith;  and  hence  we  have  mistaken  God's  gifts  for 
God,  and  have  accustomed  our  eyes  to  so  strong  an  arti- 
ficial light  that  we  cannot  see  in  the  soft  twilight  which 
belongs  to  the  Christian  life.  Or  we  have  not  been  suffi- 
ciently solicitous  to  keep  ourselves  in  harmony  with  the 
spirit  of  the  Church,  neglecting  certain  devotions,  or 
lightly  esteeming  them,  such  as  confraternities,  scapulars, 
indulgences,  nud  the  like.  Or  we  have  not  looked  suffi- 
ciently out  of  ourselves  to  the  objects  of  faith,  but  have 
res*ed    on    self-im^ri/vement    too   exclusively   and    too 


WHAT    HOLDS   US   BACK.  69 

anxiously ;  and  devotion  never  can  neglect  doctrine  with- 
out paying  dearly  for  it  in  the  end.  There  is  nothing 
Satan  can  clog  our  wheels  with  more  effectually  than  an 
untheological  devotion.  Or  again  our  lii-take  may  have 
arisen  from  our  neglecting  external  works  of  mercy  and 
edification,  and  our  not  being  r.o  scrupulously  careful  aa 
we  should  be  in  our  intercourse  with  others. 

From  all  this  we  are  led  to  conclude  that  our  secret 
obstacles  consist  of  three  mistakes  in  our  ioterior  life, 
and  two  in  our  exterior.  The  present  chapter  shall 
consider  the  first  three,  and  the  next  chapters  the  fourth 
and  fifth  of  these  mistakes. 

1.  It  is  not  impossible  that  what  is  holding  us  back  is 
defective  devotion  to  our  Blessed  Lady.  Without  this 
devotion  an  interior  life  is  impossible,'  for  an  interior  life 
is  one  wholly  conformed  to  tbe  will  of  God  ;  and  our 
Blessed  Laiiy  is  especially  His  will.  She  is  the  solidity 
of  devotioa.  Yet  this  is  not  always  sufficiently  kept  in 
mind.  Beginners  are  often  so  busy  with  the  metaphysics 
of  the  spiritual  life  that  they  do  not  attribute  sufficient 
Importance  to  this  devotion.  I  will  mention  some  of  the 
jonsi'ierations  which  they  do  not  seem  to  lay  to  heart. 
Devotion  to  the  Mother  of  our  Lord  is  not  an  ornament 
of  the  Catholic  system,  a  prettiness,  a  superfluity,  or  even 
a  help,  out  of  many,  which  we  may  or  may  not  use  It 
is  an  integral  part  of  Christianity.  A  religion  is  not, 
strictly  speaking,  Christian  without  it.  It  would  be  a 
different  religion  from  the  one  God  has  revealed.  Our 
luady  is  a  distinct  ordinance  of  God,  and  a  special  means 
of  grace,  the  importance  of  which  is  best  tested  by  the 
intelligent  wrath  of  the  evil  one  against  it  and  the  instinc- 
tive  hatred  which  heresy  bears  to  it.     She  is  the  neck  of 


70  WHAT   HOLDS   US   BACK. 

the  mystical  body,  uniting,  therefore,  all  the  members  with 
their  Head,  and  thus  being  the  channel  and  dispensing 
instrument  of  all  graces.  The  devotion  to  her  is  the  true 
imitation  of  Jesus  \  for,  next  to  the  glory  of  His  Father,  it 
was  the  devotion  nearest  and  dearest  to  His  Sacred  Heart. 
It  is  a  peculiarly  solid  devotion,  because  it  is  perpetually 
occupied  with  the  hatred  of  sin  and  the  acquisition  of 
substantial  virtues.  To  neglect  it  is  to  despise  God,  for 
she  is  His  ordinance,  and  to  wound  Jesus,  because  she  is 
His  Mother.  God  Himself  has  placed  her  in  the  Church 
as  a  distinct  power;  and  hence  she  is  operative,  and  a 
fountain  of  miracles,  and  a  part  of  our  religion  which  we 
can  in  nowise  put  in  abeyance.  Spirituality  must  be 
orthodox.  This  is  self-evident.  Now  doctrine  could  not 
be  orthodox  which  pretermitted  the  office  and  preroga- 
tives of  the  Mother  of  God ;  so  neither  can  spirituality 
be  orthodox,  if  it  be  distinct  or  separable  from  a  just  de- 
votion to  her,  and  a  devotion  generous  as  well  as  just. 
Indeed  a  mistake  in  doctrine  is  doubly  dangerous  when  it 
is  worked  up  into  the  spiritual  life.  It  poisons  every- 
thing, and  there  is  no  mischief  which  may  not  be  pre- 
dicted of  the  unfortunate  soul  which  is  the  subject  of  it. 
If  then  you  have  the  symptoms  of  something  wrong, 
something  retarding  you,  look  first  of  all  if  your  devotion 
to  our  Blessed  Lady  is  all  it  ought  to  be,  in  kind  ani 
degree,  in  faith  and  in  trust,  in  love  and  in  loyalty.  Per- 
fection is  under  her  peculiar  patronage,  because  it  is  one 
of  her  special  prerogatives,  as  queen  of  the  Saints. 

2.  It  may  be  that  you  are  wanting  in  devotion  to  the 
Sacred  Humanity  of  Jesus  and  His  mysteries.  Even 
this  is  possible,  and  not  so  uncommon  as  we  could  wish 
to  beiieve  it.     Yet  who  could  doubt  that  the  devotion 


WHAT    HOLDS    US    BACK. 

which  may  not  leave  us  on  the  highest  heights  of  con  tern 
plation,  is  quite  indispensable  in  the  states  of  the  spiritual 
life  which  we  are  considering?  It  must  interpenetrate 
every  part  of  the  Christian  life ;  and  being  a  Christian 
means  this,  if  it  means  anything.  Christ  is  the  Chris- 
tian's way,  the  Christian's  truth,  and  the  Christian's  life. 
To  lead  a  holy  life  is  to  be  the  Spouse  of  the  Incarnate 
Word;  and  therefore  the  love  of  the  Incarnate  Word  is 
the  very  neart  of  holiness.  The  love  of  the  Sacred 
Humanity  is  of  three  kinds ;  one  represents  our  interior 
affections  towaids  our  Lord,  another  the  proofs  of  the 
sincerity  and  solidity  of  those  affections,  and  another  the 
operations  which  Jesus  Himself  causes  in  the  souls  that 
are  sufficiently  well  disposed.  They  are  called,  respec- 
tively, Affective,  Effective,  and  Passive  Love. 

Affective  love  of  our  dear  Lord  consists  in  an  intense 
desire  of  His  glory,  in  a  joyous  complacency  in  the  suc- 
cess of  his  interests,  and  in  an  affectionate  beautiful  sorrow 
at  the  view  of  sin.  It  leads  us  to  pour  out  our  whole 
souls  in  confidence  before  Him,  to  complain  of  our  cold- 
ness and  imperfections,  to  put  before  Him  our  pains, 
wearinesses,  disgusts  and  trials,  and  to  abandon  all  to  Him 
with  a  quiet  and  childlike  indifference. 

Effective  love  makes  us  the  living  images  of  Jesus, 
representing  in  our  own  lives  His  states,  His  mysteries, 
and  His  virtues.  We  bear  His  image  outwatdly  by  con- 
tinual mortification,  by  diminishing  and  narrowing  our 
bodily  comforts,  by  regulating  our  senses,  by  cutting 
down  the  extravagant  requisitions  of  the  world  and  soci- 
ety, by  a  jealous  moderation  of  innocent  affections  and 
pleasures,  and  a  perpetual  repression  of  all  vanity  and 
conceit.     Our  interior  life  is  conformed  to  Jesus  by  lib- 


72  WHAT   HOLDS   US   BACK. 

erty  of  spirit,  which  means  detachment  from  creatures 
and  conformity  to  His  will.  Our  external  actions  have 
His  character  stamped  upon  them,  when  we  act  as  His 
members,  and  all  our  actions  are  done  in  dependence  upon 
Him,  and  according  to  His  movement. 

Passive  love  I  speak  of,  rather  that  we  may  learn  to 
thirst  for  what  one  day  may  be  ours,  than  that  it  is,  ordi- 
narily speaking,  to  be  looked  for  at  this  stage  of  the  spi- 
ritual life.  It  is  cheering  to  see  how  close,  please  God, 
we  may  one  day  be  to  Jesus  even  before  we  die.  His 
first  operation  in  this  supernatural  state  is  to  wound  our 
souls  with  love,  so  that  we  lose  our  taste  for  everything 
which  is  not  Him  or  His.  It  is  as  if  a  new  nature  were 
given  us,  so  little  in  harmony  with  the  wretched  world 
around  us,  that  we  languish  and  pine,  as  out  of  our  proper 
element.  Then  He  deepens  the  wound,  and  makes  all 
our  thoughts,  affections,  words  and  works  to  be  imbued 
with  His  love,  until  we  are  unable  to  do  anything  but 
seek  after  Him,  like  the  Spouse  in  the  Canticles.  Every 
love  is  renounced  but  His,  every  idea  effaced  from  our 
minds  but  of  Him,  and  everything  which  is  out  of  rela- 
tion to  Him  drops  from  our  remembrance  as  though  it 
had  never  been.  So  that  He  possesses  our  soul  altoge- 
ther, and  it  is  not  so  much  we  who  live  as  He  who  lives 
in  us.  Then  He  sets  us  all  on  fire  with  resistless  love, 
and  makes  us  break  out  into  actions  of  heroic  charity  and 
supernatural  union  with  Him,  while  all  the  time  He  so 
deepens  in  us  the  sense  of  our  own  vileness  and  nothing- 
ness that  we  do  nothing  but  deplore  the  meanness  of  our 
service  and  the  dulness  of  our  hearts.  And  lastly  He 
throws  us  into  a  state  of  purifying  suffering,  and  fastens 
on  our  shoulders  the  perpetual  cross,  when  we  seek  for 


WHAT   HOLDS   US   BACK.  78 

nothing  but  to  suffer  more,  and  shrink  fr;.m  nothing  but 
to  suffer  less.  So  He  strips  us  of  ourselves,  and  makes 
us  wholly  His.  But  all  this  is  a  long  way  on.  Look 
up  and  strain  your  eyes.  I  do  not  know  that  you  will 
so  much  as  see  the  mountain  tops  where  all  this  will  be 
found.  But  good  cheer !  it  is  something  to  know  that 
those  fair  heights  are  really  there. 

It  is  inconceivable  what  advantages  we  derive  from 
these  exercises  of  love  of  the  Incarnate  Word.  The 
heart  detaches  itself  from  creatures ;  self-love  burns  down 
and  goes  out  \  imperfections  are  corrected ;  the  soul  is 
filled  with  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  and  advances  with  giant 
strides  along  the  paths  of  perfection.  See  then,  if  you 
are  catching  no  wind  in  your  sails,  whether  your  love  of 
our  Lord's  adorable  Person  and  Sacred  Humanity  is  all 
it  ought  to  be,  all  He  meant  and  all  He  asks,  or  at  least 
whether  you  are  distinctly  cultivating  it,  and  doing  your 
best  daily  to  make  it  grow. 

3.  The  third  deficiency,  and  I  am  inclined  to  suppose 
it  by  far  the  most  common,  may  be  a  want  of  filial  feel- 
ing towards  God.  I  wish  I  could  be  very  cle^r,  as  well 
as  very  strong,  about  this,  because  so  very  much  depends 
upon  it.  If  our  view  of  God  is  not  uniformly  and 
habitually  that  of  a  Father,  the  very  fountains  of  piety 
will  be  corrupted  within  us.  We  shall  incur  the  woe  of 
which  the  prophet  speaks ;  our  sweet  will  be  bitter,  and 
our  bitter  sweet. 

Our  position  towards  God  is  that  of  creatures.  See 
what  is  involved  in  this.  We  belong  absolutely  to  Him. 
We  have  no  rights  but  those  which  He  compassionately 
cnooses  to  secure  to  us  by  covenant.  Our  life  is  at  the 
mercy  of  providence,  and  providence  is  not  a  mere  course 
7 


74  WHAT   FOLDS   US  BACK. 

of  external  events,  but  the  significant  will  of  Thres 
DWine  Persons,  One  God.  Our  condition  in  the  next 
life  is  known  to  Him  already ;  and  we  on  our  part  know 
that  more  grace  than  He  is  obliged  to  give  is  necessary 
for  us,  although  we  know  of  an  infallible  certainty  that 
He  will  give  it  us,  if  we  choose  to  correspond  to  what 
we  have.  Yet  this  last  consideration  cannot  wholly  allay 
the  nervousness  which  the  view  of  our  position  naturally 
causes  us.  Reflection  on  the  attributes  of  God,  His 
omniscience,  omnipotence,  immensity  and  ineffable  holi- 
ness, is  not  calculated  to  diminish  this  feeling.  Never- 
theless the  conviction  that  the  spirit  of  adoration,  the 
temper  of  worship,  the  instinct  of  religiousness,  reside 
simply  in  our  always  feeling,  speaking,  and  acting  towards 
trod  as  creatures,  that  is,  as  beings  who  have  no  indepen- 
dent existence  but  have  been  called  out  of  nothing  by 
Him,  is  in  reality  so  far  from  projecting  a  gloomy  shadow 
over  us,  or  exciting  an  internal  disquietude,  that  the  more 
seriously  these  truths  are  received  into  the  soul,  and  the 
more  unreservedly  the  sovereignty  of  God  is  acknowledged 
by  us,  the  more  tranquillizing,  supernaturally  tranquillia- 
ing,  will  their  effect  be  found. 

Yet  this  does  not  appear  on  the  surface,  nor  until  the 
mind  has  become  habituated  to,  and  imbued  with,  reli- 
gious thought.  .We  are  tempted  to  look  at  God  in  almost 
any  light  rather  than  that  of  a  Father,  as  well  because 
of  our  own  helplessness,  as  His  overpowering  immensity 
and  omnipotence.  Yet  our  spiritual  life  depends  entirely 
on  the  view  we  take  of  God.  If  we  look  at  Him  as  our 
Master,  then  His  service  is  our  task,  and  the  ideas  of 
reward  and  punishment  will  pervade  all  we  do.  If  wa 
regard  Him  as  our  King,  surely  we  must  be  crushed  by 


WHAT   HOLDS  US  BACK.  76 

the  indubitable  rights  of  His  unquestionable  despotism, 
and  nothing  more  tender  than  an  abstraction  of  dutiful 
loyalty  may  we  dare  to  cherish  in  our  hearts.  If  we  look 
at  Him  as  our  Judge,  the  thunders  of  His  vengeance 
deafen  us,  the  awful  minuteness  of  His  indictment  strikes 
us  dumb,  and  the  splendour  of  His  intolerable  sanctity 
blinds  us.  If  we  consider  Him  exclusively,  in  any  one 
of  these  lights,  or  in  all  of  them,  it  is  plain  our  service 
of  him  will  take  its  character  from  our  views.  Hardness, 
dryness,  untempered  fear,  and  a  consciousness  of  our  be- 
ing unable  to  stand  upon  our  rights,  will  necessarily  make 
us  cowardly  and  mean,  cringing  and  mercenary,  querulous, 
and  as  disrespectful  as  we  dare  to  be. 

But  we  may  even  look  at  Him  as  our  Creator,  and  yet 
be  wrong.  For  it  is  possible  to  consider  a  Creator  to  be 
an  independent  and  eternally  self-existing  Being,  who  for 
His  own  good  pleasure,  as  First  Cause,  has  called  crea- 
tures out  of  nothing,  and  cares  as  little  for  them  as  He  is 
beholden  to  them.  Yet  it  seems  to  me  as  if  to  be  a 
Creator  implies  the  being  a  Father  too.  The  very  will 
of  creation  is  surely  a  stupendous  act  of  paternal  tender- 
B#«9.  Thus  God  is  not  only  our  Father  and  our  Creator 
also,  but  He  is  our  Father  because  He  is  our  Creator.  A 
rational  creature,  to  be  a  creature,  must  be  a  son  also. 
W<?  bring  with  us  out  of  our  primal  nothingness  the  filial 
tie  Creation  ranges  itself  rather  under  goodness  than 
under  power  or  wisdom.  So  that  if  I  knew  no  more  of 
God  than  that  He  was  my  Creator,  I  ought  to  feel  that 
He  was  my  Father  also.  Qui  plasmasti  me  miserere 
mei :  Thou  who  formedst  me  have  mercy  on  me,  was  the 
lifelong  prayer  of  the  penitent  of  the  desert.    There  wa* 


76  WHAT   HOLDS   US   BACK. 

a  sort  of  right,  or  a  sound  of  right,  in  the  very  appella- 
tion, which  endeared  it  to  her  lowliness  and  timidity. 

However  this  may  be,  there  is  no  truth  more  certain 
than  that  God  is  our  Father;  and  that  all  that  is  most 
tender  and  most  gentle  in  all  paternity  on  earth  is  but  the 
merest  shadow  of  the  boundless  sweetness  and  affectiou- 
ateness  of  His  paternity  in  heaven.  The  beauty  and 
consolation  of  this  idea  surpasses  words.  It  destroys  the 
sense  of  loneliness  in  the  world,  and  puts  a  new  colour  on 
chastisement  and  affliction.  It  calls  consolation  out  of 
the  very  sense  of  weakness,  enables  us  to  trust  God  for 
the  problems  we  cannot  solve,  and  binds  us  by  a  sense 
of  most  dear  relationship  to  all  our  fellow-men.  The 
idea  enters  into,  and  becomes  the  master  thought  of  even 
all  our  spiritual  actions.  In  sin,  we  remember  it;  in 
aiming  at  perfection  we  lean  upon  it;  in  temptations  we 
feed  upon  it;  in  suffering  we  enjoy  it.  He  is  our  Father 
in  the  ordinary  events  of  life,  in  protection  from  a  thou- 
sand evils  which  He  never  lets  us  feel,  in  answers  to 
prayer,  in  blessing  those  we  love,  and  in  forbearance  with 
ourselves,  forbearance  with  a  degree  of  coldness  and 
incorrigibleness  which  is  almost  incredible,  even  to  our- 
selves. 

He  is  our  Father  not  nominally  only,  but  really  also. 
As  I  said,  the  tie  comes  out  of  creation.  The  Creator 
has  a  marvellous  and  mysterious  sensible  love  for  His 
creatures,  with  which  no  earthly  affection  can  compare 
for  indulgence  or  for  tenderness.  Moreover  He  has  been 
pleased  to  make  our  interests  identical  with  His ;  and  He 
has  so  created  us  in  His  likeness  and  image  as  that  we 
should  reflect  even  His  Divine  Majesty.  But  he  is  our 
Father  also  by  covenant;  and  as  He  ever  effects  what  He 


WHAT    HOLDS   US   BACK.  77 

promises,  this  new  paternity  is  as  real  as  the  other.  And 
beyond  all  ties  of  nature,  grace  and  glory,  by  which  He 
calls  us  children,  He  is  our  Father  in  a  way  we  can  never 
fully  know,  in  that  He  is  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 

Out  of  this  filial  feeling  towards  our  heavenly  Father 
comes  ease  of  conscience  as  to  past  sin.  We  can  trust 
Him,  in  sweet  confidence,  even  with  the  unutterable  de- 
cision of  our  eternal  doom.  We  enjoy  liberty  of  spirit 
in  indifferent  actions,  mingled  with  an  intense  desire  to 
serve  Him  which  our  filial  love  inspires.  Out  of  it 
come  also  a  sweet  forgetfulness  of  self,  enjoyment  in 
prayer,  patience  in  doubts,  calmness  in  difficulties,  light- 
heartedness  in  trials,  and  an  uncomplaining  contentment 
in  desolation.  We  worship  Him  for  his  own  blessed 
{sake,  because  He  is  our  most  dear  Father.  Happy  sun- 
shine of  this  thought !  it  falls  upon  our  souls  with  triple 
beam,  more  trust  in  God,  more  freedom  with  God,  more 
generosity  with  God ! 

1  have  dwelt  upon  this,  because  it  is  of  paramount 
importance  that  we  should  be  thoroughly  imbued  with  the 
true  spirit  of  the  Gospel )  and  the  missing  of  it  so  fre- 
quently as  men  do,  is  partly  owing  to  their  not  remem- 
bering every  hour  of  the  day  that  our  Blessed  Lord  is 
God,  and  partly  to  their  mixing  some  other  idea  of  God 
with  that  of  Father,  and  allowing  the  harsher  element  to 
preponderate.  The  spirit  of  the  Gospel  is  tenderness; 
and  these  three  wants  I  have  been  examining,  of  devotion 
to  our  Lady,  of  devotion  to  the  Sacred  Humanity,  and 
of  filial  feelings  towards  God,  are  at  once  effects  of  want 
of  <,endernes.  and  causes  of  the  continued  want.  This  is 
the  great  occult  hindrance.  With  your  chivalrous  desire 
7* 


78  WHAT   HOLDS   US   BACK 

for  perfection,  your  disgust  with  the  world,  and  youi 
appreciation  of  high  things,  you  expect  to  be  making 
progress,  and  are  disappointed.  I  have  already  asked  you 
to  examine  yourselves,  and  see  whether  you  are  not  want 
ing  in  devotion  to  our  Blessed  Lady,  to  our  dear  Lord's 
Sacred  Humanity,  and  to  the  ever-blessed  Paternity  of 
God.  Now  let  me  put  it  in  another  shape.  The  want 
of  these  three  things  means  in  reality  the  want  of  tender- 
ness, though  it  means  other  things  as  well.  But  the 
absence  of  tenderness  in  religion  is  often  of  itself  enough 
to  stay  man's  growth  in  holiness.  It  is  worth  while, 
therefore,  to  say  something  on  this  head.  A  man  may  be 
in  a  certain  sense  religious :  he  may  fear  God,  hate  sin, 
be  strictly  conscientious,  and  honestly  desire  to  save  his 
soul.  All  these  are  most  excellent  things.  But  you 
cannot  say  that  the  saints  were  men  of  this  sort.  They 
had  about  them  a  sweetness,  a  softness,  a  delicacy,  a  gen- 
tleness, an  affectionateness,  nay,  I  will  dare  to  say,  a 
poetry,  which  gave  quite  a  different  character  to  their 
devotion.  They  were  living  images  of  Jesus.  This,  in 
Dur  far  inferior  measure  and  degree,  we  also  must  strive 
to  be,  if  we  would  grow  in  holiness. 

By  tenderness  is  not  meant  a  mere  impressionableness, 
soft-heartedness,  or  a  facility  of  tears.  These  are  as  often 
marks  of  cowardice,  laziness,  and  a  want  of  resolute  will 
and  earnestness.  True  tenderness  begins  in  various  ways. 
Its  progress  is  marked  by  a  sorrow  for  sin,  without  think- 
ing of  its  punishment,  by  what  I  have  elsewhere  called  a 
touchiness  about  the  interests  of  Jesus,  by  childlike  doci- 
lity to  our  superiors  and  spiritual  directors,  by  mortifying 
ourselves  and  not  feeling  it  a  yoke,  by  never  thinking  of 
Btopping  short  at  precej^ts  without  going  on  to  counsels, 


WHAT   HOLDS   US   BACK.  79 

i,Dd  by  a  very  faint,  incipient,  and  as  yet  scarcely  discern- 
ible, appetite  for  humiliations.  According  as  it  is  formed 
in  our  souls,  all  the  characteristics  of  sanctity  gather  to 
it,  and  group  themselves  round  it.  For  love  is  a  greater 
safeguard  against  sin  than  fear,  and  tenderness  renders 
our  conversion  to  God  more  entire  by  making  it  more 
easy.  It  especially  attracts  Jesus,  whose  spirit  it  is,  and 
who  will  not  be  outdone  in  His  own  peculiar  sweetness. 
Without  this  tenderness  there  can  be  no  growth;  and 
while  it  renders  duty  more  easy,  and  consequently  the 
performance  of  duty  more  perfect,  it  instils  into  us  the 
especially  Christianlike  instincts,  such  as  love  of  suffering, 
silence  under  injustice,  a  thirst  for  humiliations,  and  the 
like.  Moreover,  it  deepens  sorrow  for  sin  into  a  contrition 
which  is  worth  more  to  the  penitent  soul  than  any  gift 
that  can  be  named.  Look  at  the  phenomena  of  the  In- 
carnation, what  were  they?  Helplessness,  unnecessary 
and  unobliged  suffering,  sacrifice,  abasement,  continual 
defeat,  no  assertion  of  rights,  carelessness  of  success,  and 
most  pathetic  wrongs.  And  what  is  our  response  to  all 
these  things,  but  the  temper  which  is  expressed  by  that 
one  word  tenderness  ? 

The  Sacred  Infancy  teaches  us  tenderness ;  the  Pas- 
sion tenderness ;  the  Blessed  Sacrament  tenderness ;  the 
Sacred  Heart  tenderness.  But  look  at  the  common  life 
of  Jesus  among  men,  and  you  will  see  more  clearly  what 
this  tenderness  is  like.  There  is  first  the  tenderness  of 
our  Lord's  outward  deportment.  The  narrative  of  Palm 
Sunday  is  an  instance  of  it.  Also  His  way  with  His 
disciples,  His  way  with  sinners,  and  His  way  with  those 
in  affliction  or  grief  who  threw  themselves  in  His  road. 
He  quenched  not  the  smoking  flax  nor  broke  the  bruised 
reed.     This  was  a  complete  picture  of  Him.     There  was 


80  WHAT   HOLDS   US   BACK. 

tenderness  in  His  very  looks,  as  when  He  looked  on  the 
rich  young  man  and  loved  him ;  and  St.  Peter  was  con- 
verted by  a  look.  His  whole  conversation  was  imbued 
with  tenderness.  The  tone  of  His  parables,  the  absence 
of  terrors  in  His  sermons,  and  the  abyss  of  forgiveness 
which  His  teaching  opens  out,  all  exemplify  this.  He 
is  no  less  tender  in  His  answer  to  questions,  as  when  He 
was  accused  of  being  possessed,  and  when  He  was  struck 
on  the  Face.  His  very  reprimands  were  steeped  in  ten- 
derness; witness  the  woman  taken  in  adultery,  James 
and  John,  and  the  Samaritan,  and  Judas;  nor  was  His 
zeal  less  tender,  as  was  evidenced  when  He  rebuked  the 
brothers  who  would  fain  have  called  down  fire  from  heaven 
upon  the  Samaritan  villagers,  and  also  by  the  sweet  meek- 
ness of  His  divine  indignation  when  He  cleared  the 
temple. 

Now  if  our  Lord  is  our  model,  and  if  His  spirit  be 
ours,  it  is  plain  that  a  Christianlike  tenderness  must 
make  a  deep  impression  upon  our  spiritual  life ;  and  in- 
deed give  it  its  principal  tone  and  character.  Without 
tenderness  we  can  never  have  that  spirit  of  generosity  in 
which  we  saw  that  we  must  serve  God.  It  is  as  neces- 
sary to  our  interior  life,  or  our  relation  with  God,  as  it  is 
to  our  exterior  life  or  relation  with  others ;  and  there  is 
one  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  namely  piety,  whose  special 
office  it  is  to  confer  this  tenderness. 

If  then  the  secret  obstacles  of  which  you  complain 
concern  your  interior  life,  and  arise  from  defects  in  your 
devotional  feelings  and  exercises,  cultivate  these  three 
Jevotions,  to  our  Blessed  Lady,  to  the  Sacred  Humanity 
of  Jesus,  and  to  the  Paternity  of  God,  and  great  result 
will  follow.  Put  yourself  right  in  these  three  things* 
ind  the  sails  will  no  longer  idly  flap  against  the  mast. 


EXTERNAL   CONDUCT.  81 


CHAPTER  VI. 

EXTERNAL    CONDUCT. 

1  hinted  in  the  last  chapter  that  one  reason  why  we 
felt  ourselves  hindered  by  some  secret  obstacles  was  that 
we  had  neglected  our  external  conduct,  and  had  not  been 
careful  to  apply  the  principles  of-,  the  spiritual  life  to  our 
intercourse  with  others.  It  is  to  be  wished  we  could 
always  remember  the  importance  of  this.  But  there  is 
a  more  especial  necessity  for  us  to  bear  it  scrupulously  in 
mind  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  devout  life.  For  a  be- 
ginner has  great  temptations  to  esteem  very  lightly  his 
external  conduct.  He  has  recently  been  learning  for  the 
first  time  the  importance  of  pure  intention,  habitual  re- 
collection, and  the  supremacy  of  an  interior  life.  Mode- 
ration is  difficult  to  human  nature;  and  what  is  novel 
never  gives  fair  play  to  what  is  old  and  familiar.  Hence, 
though  no  one  would  dare  to  put  it  into  words,  a  beginner 
filled  with  the  true  but  to  him  fresh  thought  that  the 
interior  life  is  far  superior  to  the  exterior,  thinks  the 
latter  positively  worthless,  or  even  regards  it  as  a  tempta- 
tion. The  esteem  of  the  one  unfortunately  breeds  in  him 
a  disesteem  of  the  other,  especially  as  a  person  who  has 
only  recently  begun  to  be  thoroughly  religious  is  always 
very  much  troubled  with  an  inclination  to  entertain  con- 
temptuous feelings  about  persons  and  things.  Contempt 
is  the  most  universal  temptation  of  beginnings.  To  be 
a  man  m*  one  idea  is  an  easy  thing,  and  there  is  a  look 


82  EXTERNAL   CONDUCT. 

of  chivalry  about  it  which  helps  the  delusion.  When  a 
beginner  preaches  a  crusade  against  anything,  we  may 
always  suspect  delusion.  The  spirit  of  a  reformer  is  the 
contradictory  of  the  ascetical  spirit.  A  crusade  against 
ourselves  may  be  well  enough,  though  better  not  even 
that,  until  we  have  learned  to  subdue  ourselves.  But  te 
attack  other  men's  faults  is  to  do  the  devil's  work  for 
him ;  to  do  God's  work  is  to  attack  our  own. 

How  different  is  the  wisdom  of  St.  Ignatius  !  When 
we  practise  particular  examen  of  conscience,  he  would 
have  us  choose  for  the  first  object  of  our  holy  persecution, 
not  the  fault  which  troubles  us  most  or  seems  of  the 
greatest  magnitude,  but  the  one  which  most  anno}'S  our 
neighbour  and  gives  him  disedification.  This  must  be 
our  model. 

Now  let  us  think  how  it  is  that  beginners,  for  I  may 
almost  say  we  are  but  beginners  in  spirituality,  though 
what  may  be  technically  called  our  beginnings  are  past, — 
how  it  is  for  the  most  part  that  they  offend  those  around 
them  and  bring  devotion  into  discredit  and  disrepute.  I 
would  not  be  harsh,  as  the  world  is,  in  speaking  of  these 
faults,  for  with  what  difficulties  are  they  not  surrounded, 
what  enormous  allowances  are  they  not  privileged  to 
claim,  and  what  an  immense  thing  it  is  that  they  should 
thus  be  working  heart  and  soul  for  God  at  all !  Besides 
which  it  is  the  old  leaven  of  the  world  to  which  they  be- 
longed, not  their  new  principles,  which  are  to  blame  for 
what  is  ungraceful  or  amiss  in  their  behaviour. 

They  offend  then  by  indiscretion,  not  observing  the 
proprieties  of  time,  place,  age,  person  and  circumstances ; 
by  inconsistency,  because  their  conduct  must  appear  such 
to  those  who  cannot  discern  in  t,hen>  *lw>  iutero^  tw 


EXTERNAL   CONDUCT.  83 

which  they  arc  waging;  by  irritability,  far  less  probably 
than  what  the  most  unkindly  critic  would  forgive  if  he 
saw  the  inward  soreness  and  the  weariness  of  spirit  which 
strife  and  temptation  cause ;  by  singularity,  because  it  -Is 
not  easy  for  a  man  at  once  to  take  up  with  a  new  set  of 
painciples  and  always  apply  them  correctly  and  gracefully 
to  the  claims  of  conflicting  duties ;  and  finally  by  what 
is  in  truth  no  fault  of  his,  but  scandal  taken  rather  than 
given,  because  the  maxims  of  the  Gospel  are  so  rudely 
ancongenial  with  the  maxims  of  the  world. 

We  must  therefore  persuade  ourselves  that  it  is  very 
important  to  our  spiritual  progress  and  interior  holiness 
that  we  should  take  great  pains  in  our  intercourse  with 
others,  in  order  that  we  may  be  to  them  the  good  odour 
of  Christ.  Negligence  on  this  point  is  the  reason  why 
many  fail  in  their  attempts  after  perfection ;  and  while 
they  are  looking  within  for  the  cause  of  their  ill-success, 
the  true  reason  of  it  is  to  be  found  all  the  while  in  their 
external  conduct. 

Now  there  is  a  wrong  as  well  as  a  right  in  every  spiri- 
tual question.  There  is  a  wrong  way  of  trying  to  edify 
people,  as  well  as  a  right  one ;  and  we  will  consider  the 
wrong  one  first.  We  must  never  attempt  to  edify  others 
by  any  sacrifice  of  principle,  to  show,  for  example,  how 
free  we  are  from  bigotry,  or  how  independent  of  forms 
and  ceremonies,  or  what  liberty  of  spirit  we  have  regard- 
ing the  observance  of  certain  positive  precepts.  This  is 
only  saying  that  we  must  not  do  evil  that  good  may  come. 
Yet  there  is  no  slight  temptation  to  a  man,  especially  if 
he  has  a  little  fit  of  unusual  discretion  upon  him,  to  show 
others  at  some  expense  of  strict  principle  that  our  holy 
religion  is  not  so  harsh  and  cruel  as  it  seems  to  be  to  the 


84  EXTERNAL   CONDUCT. 

votaries  of  the  world.  The  attempt  moreover  is  always 
as  unsuccessful  as  it  is  wrong. 

We  must  never  do  anything  in  order  to  edify  others, 
for  the  express  purpose  of  edifying,  which  we  should  not 
have  done  except  to  edify  them,  and  in  the  doing  of  which 
the  motive  of  edification  is  supreme,  if  not  solitary.  Edi- 
fication must  never  be  our  first  thought.  The  evangelical 
rule  is  to  let  our  light  shine  before  men  that  they  may 
see  our  good  works,  and  glorify  our  Father  who  is  in 
heaven.  We  must  take  great  pains  not  to  disedifyj  but 
it  would  be  very  dangerous  to  take  great  pains  to  edify. 
The  two  things  are  very  different,  although  they  are  often 
confounded :  and  you  will  not  unfrequently  meet  with 
souls  whom  self-love  has  so  gnawed  and  corrupted  that 
their  perfect  restoration  would  be  little  less  than  a  mira- 
cle, and  the  mischief  of  which  is  to  be  traced  to  a  wrong 
theory  of  the  duty  of  giving  edification.  Look  out  to 
God,  love  His  glory,  hate  yourself,  and  be  simple,  and 
you  will  shine,  fortunately  without  knowing  it,  or  think- 
ing of  it,  with  a  Christlike  splendour  wherever  you  go, 
and  whatever  you  do. 

We  must  not  make  unseasonable  allusions  to  religion, 
or  irritate  by  misplaced  solemnity.  An  inward  aspiration 
or  momentary  elevation  of  the  soul  to  God,  will  often  do 
more,  even  for  others,  than  the  bearing  of  an  open  testi- 
mony, which  principle  does  not  require,  and  at  which 
offence  will  almost  inevitably  be  taken.  There  is  a  silence 
which  edifies  without  angering ;  though  I  admit  that  the 
practice  of  it  is  far  from  easy.  Probably  we  practise  it 
most  successfully  when  we  realize  it  least,  but  act  out  of 
a  heart  which  is  in  union  with  God.  A  man  is  annoyed 
with  sacred   things  when  they  are  unseasonably  forced 


EXTERNA!    CONDUCT.  85 

npon  him;    and  thus  even  a  well-meaning   importunity 
may  be  a  source  of  sin. 

But  if  a  wrong  theory  of  edification,  not  only  causes  us 
to  make  many  false  steps  in  our  external  conduct,  but 
also  injures  and  sometimes  positively  devastates  cur  souls, 
what  shall  be  said  of  a  wrong  theory  of  fraternal  correc- 
tion ?  0  how  much  scandal  and  disedification  to  others, 
how  much  overweening  self-importance  to  themselves,  has 
resulted  from  men  holding  a  wrong  theory  about  this 
most  difficult  of  duties  and  most  obscure  of  obligations ! 
We  must  bear  in  mind  that  there  are  very  few,  who,  by 
standing  or  advancement,  are  in  any  way  called  upon  to 
correct  their  brethren,  fewer  still  who  are  competent  to 
do  it  sweetly  and  wisely,  and  none  whose  holiness  is  not 
tried  to  the  uttermost  by  its  perfect  discharge.  While, 
on  the  other  hand,  those  who  have  rashly  assumed  to 
themselves  this  delicate  responsibility  have  not  only  sinned 
themselves  by  disobedience,  disrespect,  conceit,  bitterness, 
assumption  and  exaggeration,  but  have  caused  sin  in 
others,  and  made  the  things  of  God  an  offence  to  them, 
and  a  stumbling-block  in  their  road.  Hence,  before  we 
attempt  fraternal  correction,  we  should  be  quite  sure  that 
we  have  a  vocation  to  it,  and  we  should  have  made  quite 
sure  of  it  by  the  judgment  of  others  as  well  as  our  own  j 
and  when  we  are  clear  of  the  vocation,  we  must  still  pre- 
face  our  correction  with  prayer  and  deliberation.  It  may 
be  added,  that  to  correct  our  brother  for  the  sake  of  edify- 
ing a  third  person,  is  a  practice  which  can  hardly  ever 
fail  of  producing  unpleasant  consequences  :  and  it  can  only 
be  said  not  to  injure  our  humility,  because  it  is  rather  a 
proof  that  we  have  no  humility  to  injure.  In  the  present 
stage  of  the  spiritual  life,  then,  little  more  need  be  said 
8 


86  EXTERNAL  CONDUCT. 

of  the  obligation  of  fraternal  correction  than  that  it  exists. 
Further  on,  God  will  charge  us  with  it,  and  we  shall  know 
how  to  use  it.  Should  it  by  chance  become  a  duty  now 
only  let  us  fear  it  and  think  twice,  and  He  will  help  us  if 
the  rest. 

These,  then,  are  ways  in  which  we  must  beware  0/ 
trying  to  edify  our  neighbour.  Let  us  now  see  how  w •■■ 
ought  to  edify  him.  This  must  be  in  two  ways :  by  ths 
mortification  of  Jesus,  and  by  the  sweetness  of  Jesus. 
And  first,  by  the  mortification  of  Jesus.  Silence  under 
unjust  rebukes,  abstinence  from  rash  and  peremptory 
judgments,  and  not  standing  out  in  an  ill-natured  and 
pedantic  way  for  our  rights,  obliging  others  unselfishly 
and  with  pains  and  trouble  to  ourselves,  and  not  exagge- 
rating in  an  obstinate  and  foolish  manner  unessential 
points  where  all  men  have  a  right  to  their  liberty ;  these 
are  the  ways  by  which  we  should  practise  the  mortifica 
tion  of  Jesus  in  our  intercourse  with  others;  and  inde 
pendent  of  the  edification  we  shall  give  thereby,  the  amount 
of  interior  perfection  which  we  shall  attain  by  these  prac- 
tices is  beyond  all  calculation.  For  there  is  hardly  a  corrupt 
inclination,  a  secret  pride,  or  a  fold  of  self-love  which  they 
will  not  search  and  purify. 

But  we  must  also  edify  others  by  the  sweetness  of 
Jesus.  A  soft  answer  turneth  away  wrath,  saith  Scrip- 
ture. Kind  and  gentle  words,  such  as  those  of  our  dear 
Lord,  are  an  apostolate  in  themselves.  Whereas  clever 
sharp  words,  such  as  we  have  often  a  strict  right  to  use, 
are  continually  doing  the  devil's  work  for  him,  and 
damaging  the  souls  of  others,  while  they  are  inflicting  no 
slight  wounds  upon  our  own.  Our  manner,  too,  must  be 
full  of  unction,  and  be  of  itself  a  means  to  attract  men 


EXTERNAL   CONDUCT.  $1 

fco  us,  and  make  them  love  the  spirit  which  animates  us. 
Coldness,  absence  of  interest,  an  assumption  of  superiority 
for  some  unexpressed  reasons,  or  even  an  obviousness  of 
condescension,  are  not  unfrequentlj  to  be  found  in  pious 
persons.  They  have  not  yet  mastered  the  spirit  that  is  in 
them  so  as  to  use  it  gracefully,  or  they  do  not  appreciate 
the  delicacy  and  universality  of  its  tenderness.  They 
have  not  a  true  picture  of  Jesus  in  their  minds ;  and  thus 
they  can  hardly  exhibit  Him  at  all  in  their  outward  con- 
duct. Our  very  looks  must  be  brought  into  subjection 
to  grace.  The  more  earnestly  we  are  striving  to  form 
Jesus  in  our  hearts,  the  more  will  His  sweetness  transpire 
through  our  features  without  our  knowing  it.  Except  in 
times  of  great  physical  pain,  and  that  does  not  always 
prevent  it,  the  inward  peace  and  harmony  of  the  soul 
reflect  themselves  discernibly  upon  the  countenance.  It 
has  been  observed  that  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark,  written 
at  the  dictation  of  St.  Peter,  there  are  frequent  allusions 
to  our  Lord's  look  and  gestures;  and  the  story  of  the 
young  man  who  had  not  the  heart  to  give  up  his  money, 
and  St.  Peter's  own  conversion,  show  what  the  sweetness 
of  our  Saviour's  look  could  do.  This  sweetness  is  also 
practised  when  we  praise  all  the  good  we  can  detect  in 
others,  even  where  it  is  mingled  with  what  is  not  so.  A 
man  who  praises  freely,  yet  not  extravagantly,  is  always 
influential  in  conversation,  and  can  use  his  influence  for 
the  cause  of  God.  A  critical  spirit,  on  the  contrary ; 
amuses  by  its  smartness,  or  frightens  by  its  malignity, 
but  it  neither  softens,  attracts,  persuades,  or  rules.  The 
practice  of  putting  favourable  interpretations  upon  dubious 
actions  is  another  exercise  of  this  Christ-like  sweetness. 
They  must  not  bo  forced  or  unnatural,  much  less  must 


88  EXTERNAL   CONDUCT. 

they  excuse  positive  sin ;  but  short  of  this,  there  is  ample 
scope  for  this  kindly  practice ;  and  you  will  never  prac- 
tise it  without  having  done  some  missionary  work  for  the 
glory  of  God,  although  you  know  it  not.  We  must  also 
beware  of  looks,  manner,  and  especially  of  a  certain  silence, 
by  which  we  make  others  feel  that  we  are  inwardly  cen- 
suring them.  Nothing  is  more  irritating  than  this. 
When  sin  makes  the  saints  silent,  there  is  a  sorrowful 
sweetness  in  their  silence,  as  if  they  were  grieving  for  the 
offender's  sake,  and  were  striving  to  love  him  in  spite  of 
his  sin.  This  censorious  silence,  so  little  like  the  sweet- 
ness of  Jesus,  causes  others  to  bristle  up  and  put  them- 
selves inwardly  in  an  attitude  of  defence,  and  so  it  drives 
out  the  little  grace  that  was  actually  in  them,  and  hardens 
their  hearts  against  the  admission  of  more.  Such  a  silence 
is  in  fact  the  most  pointed  fraternal  correction,  and  no  one 
has  a  right  to  exercise  it  who  has  not  ascertained  his  right 
according  to  the  methods  already  stated,  to  correct  his  bro 
ther.  And  even  then,  it  is  the  most  dangerous  way  of 
discharging  a  most  dangerous  obligation. 

It  belongs  also  to  the  sweetness  of  Jesus,  that  we 
should  not  allow  our  piety  or  devotion  to  be  inconvenient 
to  others.  When  St.  Jane  Frances  first  put  herself  under 
the  direction  of  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  her  servants  used 
to  say  that  Madame's  old  director  made  her  pray  once  or 
twice  a  day,  and  all  the  world  was  incommoded  by  it,  but 
her  new  director  makes  her  pray  all  day  long,  and  yet  no 
one  is  inconvenienced.  A  little  management  surely  would 
be  sufficient  to  contrive  that  neither  communions  nor 
prayers  should  disturb  the  least  family  arrangement,  01 
exact  one  tittle  of  self-denial  from  others.  Not  that  thev 
should  grudge  it,  unhappy  souls  !  but  that  it  belougs  to 


EXTERNAL   CONDUCT.  89 

the  sweetness  of  the  spiritual  life  that  we  should  not 
ask  it. 

Thus  it  is  that  our  intercourse  with  others  should  at 
once  sanctify  ourselves  and  edify  them  by  the  double  ex- 
ercise of  the  mortification  and  sweetness  of  Jesus.  But 
it  must  have  occurred  to  us  that  at  this  stage  of  our 
career,  our  intercourse  with  others  resolves  itself  mainly 
into  government  of  the  tongue.  I  do  not  know  which  of 
these  two  things  is  the  most  astonishing,  the  -unexpected 
importance  of  the  place  assigned  to  this  duty  in  Holy 
Scripture,  or  the  utter  unconcern  which  even  good  men 
often  feel  about  it.  Unless  a  man  takes  the  Concordance, 
and  looks  out  in  the  Bible  all  the  passages  which  have 
reference  to  this  subject,  from  Proverbs  and  Ecclesiasticus 
to  St.  James,  he  will  have  no  idea  of  the  amount  of 
teaching  which  it  contains  on  this  head,  nor  the  actual 
quantity  of  that  single  volume  which  it  engrosses.  Still 
less  will  he  realize  the  strength  of  what  inspiration 
teaches.  It  is  not  consistent  with  the  brevity  at  which  I 
am  aiming  to  enter  at  length  into  the  subject.  It  is 
enough  to  suggest  to  each  one  this  single  question,  Is  the 
amount  of  scrupulous  attention  which  I  am  paying  to  the 
government  of  my  tongue  at  all  proportioned  to  that  tre- 
mendous truth  revealed  through  St.  James,  that  if  I  do 
not  bridle  my  tongue,  all  my  religion  is  in  vain  ?  The 
answer  can  hardly  fail  to  be  both  frightening  and 
humbling. 

But  how  is  this  government  of  the  tongue  to  be  prac- 
tised ?  The  very  detailing  of  the  evils  will,  impliedly  at 
least,  suggest  the  redemies.  Listen  to  an  hour  of  con- 
versation in  any  Christian  company.  How  much  of  it 
turns,  almost  of  necessity  as  it  would  seem,  on  the  action? 

a* 


90  EXTERNAL   CONDUCT. 

and  characters  of  others  !  The  meaning  of  judging  others 
appears  to  be  this :  the  judgment-seat  of  our  Divine 
Lord  is  as  it  were  already  set  up  on  the  earth.  But  it  is 
empty.  It  is  waiting  for  Him.  We,  meanwhile,  un- 
mannerly and  unbidden,  keep  ascending  the  steps,  en- 
throning ourselves  upon  His  seat,  and  anticipating  and 
mimicking  His  judgment  of  our  brethren.  To  put  it  in 
this  way  brings  home  to  us  the  wretchedness  of  what  we 
are  doing.  It  will  also  surely  assist  us  in  endeavouring 
to  cleanse  our  conversation  of  so  much  unnecessary  can- 
vassing of  the  motives  and  actions  of  others.  Yet  for 
the  most  part  we  have  gone  far  along  our  road  in  devo- 
tion and  done  ourselves  many  an  irreparable  mischief,  be- 
fore we  bestow  half  the  carefulness  on  the  government  of 
our  tongue,  which  it  not  only  deserves,  but  imperiously 
requires 

The  first  effect  off  spirituality  on  our  minds  is  to 
sharpen  our  critical  turn.  We  have  new  measures  to 
measure  with  and  new  light  to  see  by,  and  the  charac- 
ters of  our  neighbours  get  the  disadvantage  of  our  fresh 
powers  of  observation.  Make  this  the  subject  of  your 
particular  examen,  and  you  will  be  surprised  to  find  how 
numerous  are  your  falls.  Indeed  it  is  difficult  to  exag- 
gerate either  the  facility,  the  multitude,  or  the  fatal  effects 
of  the  sin  which  all  this  talking  about  others  leads  to, 
even  with  the  best  and  kindliest  of  intentions.  At  the 
end  of  our  examen,  our  resolutions  on  the  subject  must 
be  very  minute,  and  our  falls  must  be  visited,  quietly  but 
determinedly,  with  some  voluntary  punishment  each 
time. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  speak  of  all  the  ways  in 
which  the   attention    of  spiritual  persons  at  this    stage 


EXTERNAL   CONDUCT.  91 

Bhould  be  turned  upon  their  external  conduct.  As  I 
have  said,  self-introversion  is  full  of  dangers,  and  even 
the  amount  of  inward  attention  to  self  which  is  neces- 
sary is  full  of  dangers.  Besides,  a  beginner  cannot  pos- 
sibly, even  if  it  were  desirable,  occupy  himself  wholly 
with  the  interior  life,  unless  by  an  unusual  attraction  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  The  very  attempt  would  make  him 
morbid,  unreasonable,  and  unhappy.  In  most  cases 
therefore  it  were  much  to  be  desired  that  persons  in  the 
early  stages  of  the  spiritual  life  should  have  some  exter- 
nal religious  work  to  do,  in  order  that  they  be  at  once 
busied  for  God  and  called  off  from  such  a  self-inspection 
as  might  by  its  excess  end  in  some  spiritual  disease,  and 
perhaps  bodily  ailment  as  well. 

All  persons,  for  instance,  can  make  much  more  of  their 
worldly  calling  than  they  have  done  hitherto  by  putting 
a  supernatural  intention  into  it.  They  can  join  confra- 
ternities, provided  they  do  not  allow  themselves  to  be 
overloaded  with  vocal  prayers.  Most  men  can  give  alms ; 
but  to  turn  their  alms  to  the  temporal  necessities  of  others 
into  alms  to  their  own  spiritual  necessities  as  well,  they 
must  give  till  they  feel  the  giving,  till  it  touches,  nips, 
hurts.  Without  this,  where  is  the  sacrifice  ?  Many  also 
can  give  time,  talent  and  pains  themselves  to  the  works 
of  mercy,  which  their  pastors  or  others  set  on  foot  around 
them.  Time  and  pains  are  worth  as  much  as  money  to 
the  objects  of  your  charity  •  they  are  worth  ten  times  as 
much  considered  as  spiritual  blessings  to  yourself.  But, 
do  not  be  in  a  hurry,  and  do  not  act  without  counsel; 
but  allow  yourself  to  be  guided  to  some  good  work,  in 
which  you  can  take  an  abiding  interest,  and  which  will 
suit  your  spirit,  means,  and  inclination. 


92  EXTERNAL   CONDUCT. 

It  is  surely  an  obvious  mistake  for  persons  to  start  on 
a  spiritual  course  as  if  they  were  going  to  be  hermits 
It  is  to  confound  an  interior  with  a  solitary  life.  Theif 
fight  is  to  be  in  the  world's  common  ways,  and  theif 
business  with  its  engrossing  and  multifarious  interests, 
and  their  trials  are  to  be  in  no  slight  measure  from  their 
fellow-men.  They  must  therefore  make  allowance  and 
arrangements  for  all  this.  It  must  enter  into  their  cal- 
culations. It  must  influence  thsir  decisions.  True  it  is 
that  at  the  moment  of  conversion  as  in  the  state  of  con- 
templation, we  realize  nothing  but  God  and  our  own  soul. 
It  is  a  blessed  gift  this  singleness  of  vision,  blessed  at  its 
own  time  and  in  its  own  place.  It  is  one  of  our  begin- 
nings which  is  so  like  our  endings.  But  it  is  not  to  be 
our  ordinary  or  normal  state  of  things. 

Yet  how  many  there  are  who  make  this  mistake ! 
They  are  beginning  a  devout  life.  They  are  determined 
to  be  all  for  God,  and  they  project  a  plan  or  system  for 
their  future  spiritual  life.  They  legislate  for  mental 
prayer,  for  examen  of  conscience,  for  confession  and  com- 
munion, for  particular  devotions,  and  for  mortifications. 
Everything  is  laid  out  with  the  greatest  accuracy,  the 
estimate  accepted,  the  plans  approved.  Yet  no  mention 
of  their  intercourse  with  others,  or  their  duties  towards 
others,  or  mercy  for  others  finds  a  place !  As  if  this 
were  either  not  to  be  at  all,  or  were  to  have  no  connec- 
tion with  the  spiritual  life,  or  were  so  easy  and  obvious 
to  arrange  as  not  to  be  worth  forethought  !  This  must 
surely  be  a  mistake,  and  its  influence  cannot  but  be 
widely  and  enduringly  felt  in  our  future  course.  What 
is  all  very  well  for  Camaldoli  can  hardly  be  the  thing  for 
Change  or  Piccadilly. 


EXTERNAL   CONDUCT.  93 

I  would  even  venture  to  recommend  something  to  give 
the  mind  a  more  decidedly  external  direction  at  this 
period  of  the  spiritual  life.  For,  to  tell  men  so  soon  as 
this  to  throw  themselves  out  of  themselves  upon  God  as 
the  object  of  faith  and  love,  would  not  only  be  unpracti- 
cal, because  premature,  but  would  lead  probably  to  a 
want  of  proper  self-government  and  so  to  delusions.  I 
would  recommend  that  our  favourite  devotion  should  be 
prayers  for  the  conversion  of  sinners,  with  oblations,  re- 
parations, communions,  and  the  like,  all  turned  iu  that 
direction.  God  is  always  working  with  unusual  energy 
in  some  portion  of  the  Church,  and  is  waiting  there 
ready  with  an  uncommon  profusion  of  graces,  until  we 
co-operate  with  Him  by  our  intercessions.  Devotion  to 
the  conversion  of  sinners,  when  and  where  God  pleases, 
is  full  of  the  thought  of  God,  and  falls  in  with  all  thi 
fundamental  ideas  upon  which  our  own  interior  life  is 
organized.  Hence,  to  take  but  a  selfish  view  of  the 
matter,  its  appropriateness  at  this  period  of  the  spiritual 
life. 

Nevertheless,  if  a  man  feels  no  attraction  to  this  devo- 
tion, he  need  not  be  cast  down  as  if  he  lacked  something 
indispensable  to  a  spiritual  life.  Such  a  zeal  is  so  de- 
sirable that  men  have  been  led  into  disheartening  exag- 
gerations about  it.  But  I  remember  that  Da  Ponte  in 
his  Spiritual  Guide  says  that,  while  in  the  highest  states 
of  perfection  such  a  zeal  is  always  found,  nevertheless 
there  are  very  good  people  whose  memory  of  their  own 
sins  is  so  vivid,  and  their  timid  vigilance  about  their  own 
souls  so  engrossing,  that  they  are  utterly  without  zeal  for 
the  souls  of  others.  And  Richard  of  St.  Victor,  in  his 
Preparation  for  Contemplation,   states  that,  the  case  is 


H  EXTERNAL   CONDUCT. 

not  an  infrequent  one  of  souls  poor  in  spirit,  rejoicing  in 
hope,  fervent  in  charity,  and  eminent  in  works  of  sanc- 
tity, who  yet  are  quite  tepid  and  almost  lazy  (valde 
tepidse  ac  desides)  in  their  zeal  for  souls.  This  doctrine 
will  serve  for  some  of  us  as  a  weapon  against  discourage- 
ment, and  for  others  as  a  caution  against  temerarious 
judgments.  Both  Richard  of  St.  Victor  and  Da  Ponte 
belong  to  the  unexaggerating  school  of  spiritual  writers. 


THE   RULTNG   PASSION.  96 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    RULING    PASSION. 

We  come  now  to  the  last  of  the  five  secret  obstacles 
which  we  accused  of  hindering  our  progress,  and  prevent- 
ing our  making  way  with  the  favourable  breezes  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  It  may  be  said  to  belong  to  our  interior  as 
well  as  our  exterior  life ;  though  it  is  chiefly  in  the  exte- 
rior that  we  have  to  combat  it.  Every  one  who  is  well 
read  in  old-fashioned  spiritual  books  remembers  the  dis- 
tinguished place  which  the  remora  always  occupied  in 
them.  This  was  a  certain  mysterious  and  mischievous 
little  fish,  who  by  fastening  itself  to  a  huge  ship  in  full 
sail  could  bring  it  to  a  dead  stand-still.  Our  belief  in 
the  laws  of  mechanics  and  of  natural  history  are  unfor- 
tunately fatal  to  the  remora  :  would  that  anything  might 
turn  up  which  would  be  equally  fatal  to  the  ruling  pas- 
sion, of  which  this  hidden  and  almost  omnipotent  little 
fish  was  the  figure !  But  alas !  while  we  may  safely 
expunge  the  remora  from  our  catalogue  of  fishes,  thi 
ruling  passion  still  remains  a  subject  for  continual  ana 
weary  legislation  and  police  on  the  part  of  those  who 
desire  to  grow  in  holiness. 

It  seems  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  every  man  in  the 
world  has  a  decidedly  ruling  passion;  and  the  best  writers 
do  not  go  so  far.  It  is  however  undeniably  true  that 
almost  all  men  have  such  a  passion ;  and  the  fact  of  its 
being  hidden  from  them  is  no  proof  to  the  contrary;  foi 


96  THE   RULING    PASSION. 

it  is  its  Dature  to  conceal  itself.  While  it  exists  in  the 
soul,  dominant  and  unattacked,  its  influence  may  be  called 
universal.  It  forms  the  motive  for  apparently  contradict- 
ing actions  and  gives  a  tone  and  colour  to  the  whole  life. 
It  is  the  cause  of  at  least  two-thirds  of  a  man's  sins.  The 
other  passions  are  obliged  to  acknowledge  its  empire;  and 
as  domination,  not  mere  sin,  is  the  object  of  its  ambition, 
it  will  actually  help  us  in  combating  our  other  passions; 
by  so  doing,  it  extends  its  tyranny,  and  moreover  creates 
a  diversion  in  favour  of  itself.  Other  passions  blind  us 
to  our  sins.  But  the  ruling  passion' is  not  content  with 
this.  It  goes  so  far  as  to  make  our  vices  look  like  vir- 
tues. Hence  it  is  a  direct  road  to  final  impenitence.  It 
55  this  which  gives  the  fearful  character  to  the  ruling 
passion.  It  is  with  our  souls,  as  it  is  with  a  ship,  when 
the  current  is  stronger  than  the  wind.  She  keeps  setting 
upon  the  rocks,  and  if  she  cannot  get  her  anchors  to  hold, 
she  is  lost.  Nay,  it  is  worse  with  the  soul,  whose  means 
of  safety  are  less ;  for  there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  an- 
chorage in  the  spiritual  life. 

Now  if  this  be  true,  few  subjects  can  be  more  interest- 
ing to  an  earnest  man  than  this  of  the  ruling  passion;  for 
no  obstacle  to  progress  is  more  common,  or  more  secret, 
and  therefore  none  more  dangerous.  But  let  us  under- 
stand at  the  outset  that  it  would  be  untrue  to  say  that 
there  could  be  no  progress  in  the  spiritual  life  until  the 
ruling  passion  is  vanquished.  Perfection  will  hardly 
attain  this  entire  victory  after  years  of  manly  perseve- 
rance. But  it  is  true  that  there  can  be  no  progress  until 
an  active  war  is  being  waged  against  it.  Hence  this  war 
is  a  duty  which  brooks  no  delay. 

Here  then  is  one  of  the  most  important  businesses  of 


THE   RULING   PASSION-  97 

our  lives,  to  discover  what  is  our  ruling  passion ;  and  it 
is  as  difficult  as  it  is  importaut,  because  of  the  secrecy  in 
which  that  artful  passion  invariably  wraps  itself.  There 
are,  however,  two  methods,  either  of  which  pursued 
honestly  and  for  a  sufficiently  long  time,  will  probably 
bring  us  to  the  knowledge  we  desire. 

The  daily  practice  of  self-examination  soon  furnishes 
os  with  very  numerous  observations  regarding  ourselves. 
It  is  not  however  safe  to  draw  any  practical  inferences 
from  them,  until  time  and  vigilance  have  verified  them 
under  different  circumstances  and  perhaps  even  opposite 
temptations.  We  shall  then  come  at  last  to  perceive  that 
there  is  one  passion  within  us  more  conformable  than  any 
other  to  our  whole  natural  temperament,  one  which,  taken 
by  itself,  expresses  far  more  of  our  entire  character  than 
any  other.  We  shall  find  that  such  a  passion  as  this  is 
further  characterized  by  our  feeling  a  peculiar  repugnance 
to  combat  it,  and  when  accused  of  it  by  others,  we  shall 
probably  answer  that  while  we  acknowledge  we  have  many 
aults,  yet  certainly  we  cannot  charge  ourselves  with  this. 
Moreover  this  passion  is  found  to  have  an  extraordinary 
power  of  instantaneously  kindling  our  other  passions,  and 
of  strangely  making  its  appearance  in  almost  all  our 
thoughts  and  plans,  as  self-love  perceptibly  does  with  at 
le&st  half  mankind.  While  it  makes  a  livelier  impression 
upon  our  interior  life  than  any  other  passion,  it  also  causes 
the  greater  number  of  the  disorders  which  disgrace  oui 
external  couduct.  The  majority  of  our  falls,  and  all  our 
greatest  falls,  are  attributable  to  it,  while  it  habitually 
exposes  us  to  the  greatest  dangers  aud  the  most  frequent 
occasions  of  sin,  and  thus  has  more  lasting  and  trouble- 
some oonsequeiL3es  than  any  other  of  our  passions,  bad 
9  a 


98  THE   RULING   PASSION. 

and  ruinous  as  they  may  be.  It  takes  some  time  to  find 
out  all  this.  But  we  may  be  sure  that  any  passion,  of 
which  all  or  the  greater  number  of  these  things  are  true, 
is  in  reality  our  ruling  passion,  a  principle  of  spiritual 
death  within  our  souls. 

The  other  method  of  discovering  our  ruling  passion 
necessarily  resembles  the  first  in  many  respects,  and  fixes 
its  attention  upon  the  same  symptoms;  but  it  is  easier 
because  it  does  not  imply  so  universal  or  so  incessant  a 
watchfulness.  Perhaps  because  it  is  easier,  it  is  less  suc- 
cessful, or  is  longer  at  least  in  attaining  success.  Some 
writers  of  ascetical  theology  recommend  the  one,  and  some 
the  other.  This  second  method  then  consists  of  waiting 
for  any  unusual  joy  or  sadness  which  stirs  our  soul  with- 
out an  obvious  reason,  and  to  enquire  whence  either  of 
these  emotions  arises.  Even  if  there  should  be  an  appj 
rent  cause,  the  joy  or  the  sadness  may  be  so  dispropou 
tioned  to  it  as  to  lead  us  to  suspect  some  additional  hidden 
cause ;  and  the  probability  is  that  it  lies  in  some  satisfac- 
tion or  displeasure  of  our  ruling  passion.  We  must  be 
strangely  unobservant  of  ourselves  if  we  have  not  expe- 
rienced these  vicissitudes  of  high  and  low  spirits,  for 
which  there  was  not  sufficient  on  the  surface  of  our  lives 
to  account;  and  whatever  be  the  result  of  our  examina- 
tion of  them,  we  may  be  quite  sure  such  phenomena  are 
never  without  an  important  bearing  on  our  spiritual  life. 

Then,  again,  we  go  to  confession  more  or  less  frequently; 
and  certain  venial  sins  and  faulty  imperfections  form  the 
matter  of  our  self-accusations.  Particular  faults  are  per- 
petually recurring.  It  is  even  a  subject  of  annoyance  to 
us  that  the  matter  of  our  confessions  does  not  vary  more 
than  it  does.     They  arc  always  turning  on  three  or  fon» 


THE  RULING   PASSION.  99 

faults.  Now  when  we  have  satisfied  oursebes  deliberately 
what  the^e  three  or  four  things  are,  we  are  naturally  in 
proportion  to  our  earnestness  led  to  examine  them,  to  see 
from  what  roots  they  spring,  and  what  circumstances  de- 
velope  them.  Almost  always  it  will  be  found  that  they 
come  from  one  common  root;  and  the  discovery  of  this 
common  root  will  be  the  discovery  of  our  ruling  passkn. 
A  fault  which  is  both  an  abundant  and  a  persisting  source 
of  venial  sins  can  hardly  be  anything  less  than  our  ruling 
passion. 

Again,  there  is  a  kind  of  low  spirits  which  differ  from 
the  sadness  spoken  of  before.  There  are  times  when 
everything  seems  to  come  to  an  end.  We  are  tired  of 
strictness.  Prayer  weighs  upon  us  as  intolerably  heavy. 
Spiritual  reading  inspires  disgust.  We  feel  reckless  about 
temptation,  and  even  the  habitual  fear  of  sin  has  so  com- 
pletely ceased  to  be  sensible,  that  it  appears  as  if  we  could 
fall  at  any  moment.  The  thought  of  God  does  not  arouse 
us  as  it  has  been  wont  to  do.  Care  for  souls  and  loyal 
zeal  for  the  Church  are  sentiments  so  passed  from  us  that 
we  have  almost  forgotten  what  they  are  like,  just  as  men 
in  winter  cannot  clothe  the  landscape  in  verdure  and 
foliage,  and  imagine  it  as  it  was  in  summer,  so  as  to 
satisfy  themselves.  We  yearn  for  the  sights  and  sounda 
of  worldliness  as  if  they  would  be  a  relief;  and  our  heart 
leaps  up  at  any  consolation  which  has  not  to  do  with 
spiritual  things.  Our  very  associations  have  faded  out 
from  us,  and  anything  like  a  habit  of  godliness  to  all 
appearance  has  dropped  away  as  though  it  had  never 
been.  An  intense  weariness  comes  over  us,  and  a  nausea 
for  spirituality,  which  makes  us  ill-tempered  with  God, 
rather  than  afraid  of  offending  Him.    The  misery  of  thesfl 


1 00  THE   RULING   PASSION. 

fits  of  low-spiiits  can  hardly  be  exaggerated.  Can  thr 
danger  of  them  be  exaggerated  either  ?  For  they  are 
accompanied,  not  so  much  with  sadness,  which  is  more  or 
less  softening,  as  with  irritability,  which  is  no  home  for 
grace,  but  rather  a  proximate  preparation  for  all  kinds  of 
venial  siu.  It  is  of  God's  sheer  mercy  if  the  evil  is 
stayed  even  there.  Miserably  unhinged  and  unfitted  for 
the  task  as  we  are,  then,  we  must  even  in  our  wretched- 
ness attempt  some  kind  of  self-examination,  and  question 
ourselves  as  to  the  cause  of  this  dismal  oppression.  It 
has  none  of  the  marks  of  a  divine  subtraction  of  sensible 
sweetness.  Its  features  are  not  like  those  of  a  passive 
purgation  of  spirit,  as  mystical  theologians  call  them.  It 
is  an  operation,  possibly  diabolical,  but  most  probaoly 
entirely  human.  If  we  can  arrive  at  the  cause,  the  pro- 
bability is  that  we  have  discovered  our  ruling  passion  It 
is  too  fundamental  a  mischief,  to  come  from  anything 
short  of  it.  Persons  of  soft  and  effeminate  character,  sen- 
sitive and  sentimental,  loving  bodily  comforts,  not  rvac- 
tising  any  regular  mortifications,  and  careful  of  tHei* 
eating,  drinking,  and  sleeping,  are  peculiarly  liable  to 
these  spiritual  visitations  of  waking  nightmare.  In  other 
words,  to  be  attacked  by  them  is  a  symptom,  though  not 
an  infallible  one,  that  our  ruling  passion  is  sensual' ty, 
which  almost  rivals  self-love  both  for  its  universality  and  ita 
successful  artifices  to  disguise  itself  and  appear  other  thaD 
it  is.  How  many  are  there  whose  apparent  enjoyment 
in  religion,  together  with  their  mild  views  of  moral 
theology,  their  familiarity  with  God,  their  comfortable 
intimacy  with  our  Blessed  Lady,  their  aspirations  of  dis- 
interested love,  their  depreciation  of  mere  dry  precept 
and  hard  conscientiousness,  their  facility  in  making  saints 


THE   RULING   PASSION.  101 

words  and  feelings  their  own,  —  all  come,  though  the} 
little  think  it,  from  the  luxurious  refinements  of  modern 
ease,  and  a  secret  ruling  passion  of  sensuality  ! 

Thus  this  second  method  of  discovering  our  ruling 
passion  is  not  so  much  a  continuous  examination  of  our 
whole  conduct,  as  a  waiting  for,  and  seizing  upon,  certain 
salient  points  of  it,  as  those  which  are  likely  beforehand 
to  be  developments  of  this  dominant  inclination.  But 
hidden  as  its  presence  and  influence  are,  there  are  certain 
things  of  almost  daily  occurrence  in  which  this  serpent, 
in  spite  of  itself,  discloses  its  operations.  It  mixes  with 
all  our  sins,  no  matter  against  what  virtue  or  command- 
ment. It  is  the  feature  which  all  our  sins  will  be  found 
to  have  in  common.  Self-love  in  one  man,  sensuality  in 
another,  vanity  in  a  third,  ambition  in  a  fourth,  or  in  a 
fifth  that  most  unconquerable  of  monsters,  simple  indo- 
lence. So,  too,  we  often  resist  temptations,  without 
supernatural  motives,  and  as  it  would  seem,  without  call- 
ing grace  to  our  aid.  Or,  to  speak  more  accurately, 
suggestions  of  evil  that  in  some  moods  would  be  tempta- 
tions to  us,  in  other  moods  have  no  such  magnetic 
character,  and  hence  they  fall  off  from  us  harmlessly, 
like  spent  arrows  off  a  shield.  It  is  often  our  ruling 
passion  which  is  our  shield.  It  distracts  us  from  the 
pleasures  offered  to  us,  or  it  turns  them  aside  as  inter- 
fering with  some  deeper  scheme  of  its  own.  We  are  pre- 
occupied men,  who  do  not  see  and  hear.  We  do  not 
notice  these  temptations,  so  that  strictly  they  never 
become  temptations  at  all. 

There  are  some  persons  who  are  so  strongly  persuaded 
tfhat  everything  about  them  is  as  it  ought  to  be,  that  they 
are  prepared  to  defend  themselves  on  all  poin  ts,  and  as  a 

Q* 


1^2  THE   RULING   PASSION. 

matter  of  fact  do  so.  These  are  few  in  number,  because 
the  blindness  of  self-love,  though  universal,  is  seldom 
total.  Still,  such  specimens  are  to  be  met  with  and 
studied )  for  there  is  much  in  them,  which,  doing  no  good 
to  themselves,  is  a  capital  warning  to  others.  To  these, 
what  I  am  now  going  to  say  will  not  apply.  But  men, 
who  are  satisfied  that  their  conduct  is  not  uniformly  and 
on  all  points  defensible,  will  find  that  there  arc  certain 
points  on  which  they  invariably  defend  themselves,  cer- 
tain points  on  which  they  are  morbidly  sensitive.  The 
soreness  discloses  the  ruling  passion.  This  is  almost  an 
infallible  method  of  detection.  Separate  the  circum- 
stances, the  conversation,  the  excitement,  whatever  it  may 
be,  see  on  what  subject  you  defend  yourself  in  all  manner 
of  circumstances,  hot  or  cool,  taken  by  surprise  or  with 
deliberation,  and  you  may  be  sure  that  the  subject  indi- 
cates the  ruling  passion  :  though,  of  course,  a  good  many 
symptoms  must  be  observed,  as  the  same  symptom  may 
point  to  vanity  or  to  self-love,  to  sensuality  or  to  indolence 
While  we  are  conducting  these  all-important  investiga 
tions,  we  must  remember  likewise  to  take  our  director 
into  our  council.  We  are  very  blind  in  matters  which 
concern  ourselves,  even  when  we  have  to  do  with  mere 
external  interests.  Still  more  are  we  blind  in  things 
pertaining  to  self-correction.  And  when  we  consider  the 
peculiar  characteristic  of  the  ruling  passion  that  it  passes 
vice  off  for  virtue,  we  have  additional  reasons  for  dis- 
trusting our  own  solitary  judgment  in  the  matter.  Hence 
it  is  that  a  director  frequently  discovers  a  penitent's 
ruling  passion,  before  the  penitent  has  discovered  it  him- 
self. But  under  any  circumstances  we  must  consult  him 
He  must  help  us  in  the  search.     He  must  approve  the 


THE   RULING   PASSION.  103 

discovery.     He  must  guide  us  in  the  warfare  which  we 
must  forthwith  wage  against  our  domestic  enemy. 

It  does  not  come  within  the  scope  or  brevity  of  this 
treatise  to  urge  persuasive  motives  for  a  scrupulous  and 
almost  frightened  attention  to  this  subject  of  the  ruling 
passion.  My  object  is,  as  you  know,  merely  to  describe 
symptoms  and  to  suggest  means.  But  so  much  must  be 
said.  They  who  have  not  a  ruling  passion  are  very  few 
in  number ;  and  they  who  have  can  have  no  more  im- 
portant or  pressing  affair  than  the  discovery  of  it  and  the 
warfare  against  it.  Saul  was  ruined,  and  Solomon  fell 
for  the  want  of  this.  The  lost  vocation  of  Judas  was  the 
work  of  his  ruling  passion,  which  had  coexisted,  remem- 
ber, with  all  the  immense  graces  implied  in  his  having 
had  a  true  vocation  to  that  unequalled  apostolic  office ; 
and  that  his  vocation  was  true  is,  by  some  theologians, 
considered  to  be  of  faith,  because  of  our  Lord's  words,  I 
have  elected  you.  The  punishment  of  not  seeing  the 
promised  land,  under  which  Moses  ended  his  days,  was 
the  work  of  his  ruling  passion,  which  he  had  come  so 
near  to  utterly  vanquishing,  that  whereas  by  nature  he 
was  the  hastiest  of  men,  by  grace  he  became  what  the 
Holy  Spirit  calls  him,  the  meekest  of  men.  Other  por- 
tions then  of  the  spiritual  life  may  have  superior  attrac- 
tions to  this,  others  may  seem  to  urge  us  more  swiftly 
along  our  road,  or  give  at  once  a  more  supernatural  turn 
to  our  character.  But  none  can  compete  in  urgency  and 
importance  with  this  duty  of  overcoming  our  ruling 
passion.  You  must  stop  at  this.  You  can  never  think  of 
leaving  such  a  fortress  untaken  in  your  rear  God  will 
go  no  further.  His  current  of  graces  will  cease  flowing 
upon  you.     It  will  be  by  nature  and  by  temperament 


104  THE   RULING   PASSION. 

that  you  are  advancing,  not  by  grace.  With  you  or  with, 
out  you,  He  will  sit  down  before  that  citadel,  and  when 
He  has  waited  long  enough  for  you  to  see  the  error  and 
to  come  back  and  to  cast  up  your  entrenchments  against 
it,  and  you  do  not  come,  He  will  in  the  awful  language 
of  Scripture  give  you  over  to  your  own  desires,  and  leave 
the  field,  and  you  will  wander  on,  in  your  own  strength, 
and  along  your  own  road,  till  you  fall  fainting  and  die  by 
the  way,  and  they  that  come  after  shall  see  you  and  say, 
Lo !  another  frustrate  saint,  another  broken  instrument, 
another  lost  vocation  ! 

The  dryness  then  of  this  duty  must  not  repel  us.  nor 
its  difficulties  discourage  us.  We  must  consider  them 
we  J,  but  our  hearts  must  not  sink  at  the  consideration. 
Th3  greatest  difficulty  is  that  of  discovering  this  ruliug 
pansion.  To  a  brave  man  that  should  be  half  the  battle; 
ami  we  have  already  considered  the  methods  by  which 
thst  knowledge  may  in  ordinary  cases  be  attained.  The 
blhidness  this  passion  causes  both  as  to  itself  and  other 
sins  is  an  outwork  as  strong  as  the  fort  itself;  and  its 
pretence  of  virtuous  indignation  against  the  other 
pasiions  is  but  the  dust  it  raises  and  flings  into  our  eyes, 
as  we  advance  to  the  attack.  The  treachery  of  our  own 
he&rts,  willing  to  acknowledge  any  passion  to  be  our 
ruling  passion  rather  than  the  one  which  really  is  so,  is  a 
domestic  enemy  that  must  be  strictly  watched,  lest  in  the 
vevy  heat  of  the  assault  it  play  us  false.  But  I  have  seen 
many  overcome  these  difficulties  with  a  little  manly 
effort.  They  have  got  so  far  without  a  check,  and  with- 
out a  wound.  The  difficulty  I  fear  still  remains  to  be 
considered,  the  difficulty  which  has  been  so  fatal  to  many, 
and  continues  to  be  fatal  to  numbers  of  soils  daily. 


THE   RULING   PASSION.  105 

It  is  the  cowardice  and  pusillanimity  which  lead  us  to 
believe  that  we  never  shall  really  overcome  our  ruling 
passion.  At  first  men  try  to  persuade  themselves  that 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  unreality  and  exaggeration  in 
what  is  said  on  this  subject,  and  that  far  too  much  stress 
is  laid  upon  its  importance  and  success.  Now  be  it  ob- 
served I  lay  no  stress  upon  the  success  of  our  warfare, 
but  only  on  the  importance  of  our  being  really  at  war. 
Not  that  success  is  not  to  be  looked  for  at  last,  and  that 
it  is  an  immense  gain.  But  I  lay  the  stress  on  the  war- 
fare, not  on  the  victory.  Presently  a  series  of  defects 
and  a  complete  check  of  their  spiritual  progress  lead  n  en 
to  see  that  the  matter  was  not  exaggerated ;  indeed  t)  ey 
feel  that  the  difficulties  of  the  work  have  been  estinv  ted 
too  cheaply.  They  are  then  inclined  to  despair  of  the 
whole  matter,  and  to  abandon  the  task  as  useless.  They 
fall  into  low  spirits  from  being  continually  beaten,  u*itil 
they  are  as  pusillanimous  as  cowed  children.  Every 
defeat  is  a  loss  of  moral  power  and  so  leads  to  d(  feat 
again.  The  very  means  which  we  are  urged  to  adopt  'ook 
fearful  to  us,  and  we  have  not  the  heart  to  adopt  th  >m, 
and  use  them  with  that  unshrinking  firmness  whicl .  is 
necessary.  But,  are  we  prepared  to  abandon  the  spiritual 
life  altogether,  and  not  to  aim  at  perfection  ?  If  not,  we 
must  be  up  and  doing.  Delay  is  making  matters  less 
hopeful  every  hour.  What  is  hard  now,  may  soon  become 
impossible. 

The  means  which  we  must  adopt  are  certainly  of  a 
painful  kind.  We  could  hardly  expect  it  to  be  otherwise 
in  expelling  such  an  enemy.  Cutting,  burning,  and  lying 
Wakeful,  what  else  can  do  us  any  good  ?  The  first  means 
is  to  repress  instantaneously  the  very  first  movements  of 


106  THE   RULING   PASSION. 

what  we  have  now  discovered  to  be  our  ruling  passion 
We  must  not  wait  till  they  gain  strength,  or  bring  delec- 
tation with  them  and  so  become  downright  temptations. 
But  we  must  cut  them  down  at  once ;  and  this  work  is 
endless  and  continual.  There  is  no  resting  over  it  or 
sleeping  at  it.  Secondly,  we  must  take  great  pains  to 
foresee  and  avoid  the  occasions  of  this  ruling  passion. 
We  must  legislate  for  this,  spend  time  upon  it,  and  shape 
our  daily  life  accordingly,  so  far  as  the  relative  duties  of 
our  station  will  permit  us  to  do  so.  Thirdly,  our  strict- 
ness with  ourselves  on  this  subject  must  be  persevering 
and  intermitting.  An  interval  will  let  all  go  at  once,  and 
we  shall  almost  have  to  begin  over  again.  And  fourthly, 
as  I  have  said  before,  we  must  penance  ourselves  for  each 
wilful  carelessness  and  guilty  fall,  and  our  penances  must 
be  such  as  will  make  us  feel  them  and  fear  them.  They 
must  go  to  the  quick,  if  it  be  but  an  instant. 

All  this  is  not  very  encouraging,  it  must  be  admitted. 
But  nothing  is  insurmountable  to  him  who  loves  God. 
Beware  of  the  delusion  into  which  Satan  will  try  to  lead 
you.  It  is  that  of  believing  all  this  pains  about  our  ruling 
passion  a  work  fit  only  for  saints,  and  belonging  to  the 
higher  stages  of  the  spiritual  life.  This  is  one  of  the 
devil's  choice  axioms  in  almost  everything.  A  wise  man 
will  distrust  it  whenever  he  hears  it.  So  far  is  it  from 
being  true  in  the  present  case,  that  it  would  be  more  true 
to  say  that  until  this  work  has  advanced  a  good  way  to- 
wards its  completion,  the  soul  never  can  enter  the  higher 
stages  of  the  spiritual  life  at  all.  It  is  an  indispensable 
work.  It  must  be  done ;  and  moreover  it  must  be  done 
now.  It  is  true  that  some  of  the  hardest  work  of  the 
spiritual  life  comes  early  on.     This  is  an  instance  of  it 


THE   RULING   PASSION.  107 

Let  nothing  mislead  you.  Prayer  is  tempting,  and  liberty 
of  spirit  is  inviting.  There  is  a  dignity  about  austerity, 
which  allures  even  while  it  appals.  The  love  of  humilia- 
tions is  attractive  to  the  enthusiastic  heart,  and  a  first 
taste  of  calumny  makes  us  thirst  for  more,  as  one  savour 
of  bitterness  gives  us  an  appetite,  while  much  of  it  clogs 
us  with  sickliness.  But  let  nothing  draw  you  off  either 
to  the  right  hand  or  the  left.  There  is  your  ruling  passion. 
That  is  the  work ;  there  is  your  vocation ;  there  is  your 
grace,  and  at  present  not  elsewhere.  Visions  and  raptures, 
miracles  and  mortifications,  and  the  bright  lights  of  con- 
templation, will  not  succeed  in  moving  us  one  step  on- 
wards, unless  we  are  the  while  keeping  up  a  tedious  run- 
ning fight  with  our  ruling  passion.  I  have  seen  many 
men  who  have  brought  their  ruling  passion  into  very 
tolerable  subjection :  I  never  saw  one  yet  whose  ruling 
passion  was  indolence,  and  who  had  made  any  satisfactory 
progress  in  bringing  the  incorrigible  unresisting  rebel  be- 
neath the  sway  of  grace.  Yet  I  do  not  say  that  even  tlivX 
enemy  is  invincible. 


U/8  OUR   NORMAL   STATJB. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

OUR    NORMAL    STATE. 

Everything  in  the  world  seems  to  have  a  peculiai 
beginning  and  a  peculiar  ending,  with  a  normal  state  be- 
tween them ;  and  it  is  always  this  normal  state  which 
gives  the  truest  character  of  a  thing;  for  it  expresses  its 
nature  and  ruling  idea.  Yet  the  phenomena  of  the  spi- 
ritual life  appear  to  be  of  a  different  kind.  It  seems  at 
first  sight  as  if  the  spiritual  life  could  have  no  normal 
stab;,  except  the  being  a  perpetual  dissatisfied  progress, 
whose  highest  mark  would  always  be  a  disappointment, 
as  felling  so  far  below  even  reasonable  and  legitimate  ex- 
pec  tution. 

The  greater  part  of  its  time  and  attention  is  taken  up 
with  mere  preliminaries.  What  with  means,  vigilances, 
reparations,  commandments,  prohibitions  and  warnings, 
aim  jst  the  whole  of  a  spiritual  book  is  occupied  with 
stuuying  the  chart,  rather  than  starting  us  on  our  voyage. 
Th*  last  chapter  of  many  books  gets  no  further  than  a 
falv  launch.  Then  it  seems  as  if  we  never  did  get  into  a 
fixai  state,  such  as  we  could  call  normal  or  habitual. 
What  follows  no  rule  can  give  no  rule ;  how  then  can  it 
be  normal  ?  Fallen  nature  cannot  go  to  Grod  either  in  a 
groove  or  down  an  inclined  plane,  any  more  than  men 
can  march  through  an  embarrassed  country  or  fight  & 
battle  on  mathematical  lines. 


OtJIl   NORMAL   STATE.  109 

Moreover,  the  experiences  of  the  saints  are  nothing 
more  than  a  continually  shifting  scene  of  vicissitudes,  and 
alternations  of  bright  and  dark,  which  baffle  all  induction, 
bo  various,  perplexing,  unruly  and  contradicting  are  they. 
Even  as  a  panorama  gradually  unfolded,  the  spiritual  life 
has  no  apparent  unity,  completeness,  or  dramatic  comple 
tion.  As  a  journey  it  is  up-hill;  and  its  paths,  therefore, 
like  all  mountain-tracks,  devious,  winding,  and  seemingly 
capricious.  Hence  there  is  no  feeling  of  working  up  to  a 
table-land,  where  we  may  hope  to  try  other  sinews,  and  enjoy 
the  level. 

Yet  for  all  this  the  spiritual  life  has  a  kind  of  normal 
state ;  and  we  shall  find  the  knowledge  of  it  a  help  to 
us.  It  consists  in  a  perpetual  interchange  of  three  dis- 
positions, sometimes  succeeding  each  other,  and  reigning 
in  fcjrns,  sometimes  two  of  them  occupying  the  throne 
at  once,  and  sometimes  all  three  at  the  same  time  exer- 
cising their  influence  conjoined.  These  three  dispositions 
are  struggle,  fatigue,  and  rest ;  and  each  of  them  requires 
an  attendant  satellite  to  give  them  light  in  the  night-time 
of  their  revolutions.  Struggle  requires  patience.  Fatigue 
must  be  proof  against  human  respect.  Rest  must  lean 
upon  mortification,  for  nowhere  else  can  she  safely  Bleep. 
So  I  have  now  in  this  chapter  to  describe  these  three  dis- 
positions which  make  up  our  normal  state ;  and  in  the  three 
following  chapters  to  consider  patience,  human  respect,  and 
mortification. 

1.  I  must  speak  first  of  struggle.  There  seems  theo- 
retically to  be  no  difficulty  in  this  idea;  yet  practically 
it  is  not  an  easy  one  to  realize.  If  the  tradition  of  the 
Universal  Church  is  harmonious  and  conclusive  on  any 
one  point  concerning  the  spiritual  life,  it  is  that  it  is  a 
10 


110  OUR   NORMAL    STATE: 

struggle,  strife,  combat,  battle,  warfare,  whichever  word 
you  may  choose.  No  one  doubts  it.  A  man  would  be 
out  of  his  senses  who  should  doubt  it.  Reason  proves  it, 
authority  proves  it,  experience  proves  it.  Yet  see  what 
an  awkward  practical  question  for  each  one  of  us  rises 
out  of  this  universal  admission.  At  any  moment  we  may 
turn  round  upon  ourselves  and  say,  Is  my  religious  life  a 
struggle  ?  Do  I  feel  it  to  be  so  ?  What  am  I  struggling 
against?  Do  I  see  my  enemy?  Do  I  feel  the  weight 
of  his  opposition  ?  If  my  life  is  not  sensibly  a  fight,  can 
it  be  a  spiritual  life  at  all  ?  Or  rather  am  I  not  in  one 
of  the  common  delusions  of  easy  devotion  and  im mortified 
effeminacy  ?  If  I  am  not  fighting,  I  am  conquered ;  and 
surely  I  can  hardly  be  fighting,  and  not  know  it.  These 
are  very  serious  questions  to  ask  ourselves,  and  we  ought 
to  be  frightened  if  at  any  time  we  cannot  obtain  satisfac- 
tory answers  to  them.  A  good  frightening!  what  an 
excellent  thing  it  is  now  and  then  in  the  spiritual  life ! 
Yet  in  these  times  it  seems  as  if  we  were  all  to  be  inva- 
lids in  holiness;  for  spiritual  direction  expends  its  efforts 
in  producing  a  composing  silence  round  about  our  sick- 
beds, as  if  the  great  thing  was  not  to  awake  us;  and  the 
little  table  near  has  a  tiny  homoeopathic  opiate  for  each 
devout  scruple  as  it  rises,  to  lay  it  to  sleep  again,  as  if  it 
were  not  true  that  these  scruples  are  often,  like  the  irrita- 
bility of  a  patient,  signs  of  returning  strength.  Is  simple 
convalescence  from  mortal  sin  to  be  the  model  holiness  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  at  least  for  luckless  souls  living  in 
the  world  ? 

Oh,  how  one  comes  to  love  this  great  huge  London, 
when  God  has  thrown  us  into  it  as  our  vineyard  !  The 
monster !  it  looks  so  unmanageable,  and  it  is  positively 


OUR    NORMAL    STATE.  Ill 

so  awfully  wicked,  so  hopelessly  magnificent,  so  heretically 
wise  and  proud  after  its  own  fashion.  Yet  after  a  fashion 
it  is  good  also.  Such  a  multitudinous  remnant  who  have 
never  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal,  such  numbers  seeking 
their  way  to  the  light,  such  hearts  grace-touched,  so  much 
secret  holiness,  such  supernatural  lives,  such  loyalty, 
mercy,  sacrifice,  sweetness,  greatness  !  St.  Vincent  Fer- 
rer preached  in  its  streets,  and  Father  Colombiere  in  its 
mews.  Do  not  keep  down  what  is  good  in  it,  only  be- 
cause it  is  trying  to  be  higher.  Help  people  to  be  saints. 
Not  all  who  ask  for  help  really  wish  it,  when  it  comes  to 
be  painful.  But  some  do.  Raise  ten  souls  to  detachment 
from  creatures,  and  to  close  union  with  God,  and  what 
will  happen  to  this  monster  city?  Who  can  tell  ?  Monster 
as  it  is,  it  is  not  altogether  unamiable.  It  means  well 
often,  even  when  it  is  cruel.  Well-meaning  persons  are 
unavoidably  cruel.  Yet  it  is  often  as  helpless  and  as  de- 
serving of  compassion  as  it  is  of  wrath  and  malediction. 
Poor  Babylon  !  would  she  might  have  a  blessing  from  her 
unknown  God,  and  that  grace  might  find  its  way  even  into 
her  Areopagus  ! 

But  what  does  our  struggle  consist  of?  Mostly  of  five 
things ;  and  if  there  were  time  for  it,  we  might  write  a 
chapter  on  each  of  them.  First,  there  is  positive  fighting. 
You  see  I  am  letting  you  off  easily,  for  some  would  say 
that  the  Christian  life  is  always  a  fight,  ever  an  actual 
battle ;  and  that  doctrine,  sought  to  be  verified  in  your 
practice,  might  often  be  very  discouraging.  I  call  it  a 
struggle,  and  I  make  positive  fighting  only  one  part  of  it. 
Secondly,  there  is  taking  pains,  such  as  pitching  tents, 
cleaning  arms,  gathering  fuel,  cooking  rations,  recon- 
n^itering      Thirdly,  there  are  forced  marches.     If  I  ask 


112  OUR   NORMAL   STATE. 

you  whether  you  are  fighting,  and  you  answer,  No,  but  1 
am  footsore,  I  shall  be  quite  content,  and  will  not  tease 
you  any  more.  I  do  not  even  object  to  an  occasional 
bivouac;  it  all  comes  into  my  large  and  generous  sense 
)f  the  word  warfare.  Fourthly,  there  is  a  definite  enemy. 
By  this  I  do  not  mean  that  you  must  always  know  your 
enemy  when  you  see  him.  A  vice  may  come  and  play 
the  spy  in  the  clothes  of  a  dead  virtue.  But  you  must 
have  an  enemy  in  view,  and  know  what  you  are  about 
with  him.  To  invade  the  world,  and  then  look  round  for 
an  enemy,  is  not  the  business-like  thing  I  understand  by 
the  spiritual  combat.  Fifthly,  there  must  be  an  almost 
continual  sensible  strain  upon  you,  whichever  of  your 
military  duties  you  may  be  performiag.  If  you  feel  no 
differently  on  your  battle-field  from  what  you  used  to  feel 
in  the  hay-field,  you  will  not  come  up  to  my  mark.  TVese 
are  the  five  things  of  which  our  struggle  consists. 

But  you  will  ask,  what  are  the  enemies  against  whom 
I  have  to  struggle  ?  Seven  ;  and  the  natural  historj  of 
each  of  them  might  occupy  a  little  treatise  by  itself.  We 
must  now  despatch  them  with  a  few  words.  First,  we 
have  to  fight  against  sin,  not  only  with  actual  temptations 
in  times  when  they  press  us  hard,  but  at  all  times  vrith 
the  habits  which  old  sins  have  wound  so  tightly  and  so 
fearfully  round  us,  and  with  the  weakness  which  is  a  con- 
sequence of  our  past  defeats.  The  reason  why  men  are 
fo  often  surprised  into  grave  sins  is  not  always  to  be  found 
in  the  vehemence  of  the  temptation,  and  their  want  of 
attention  to  it  at  the  time;  but  in  their  want  of  attention 
to  the  general  moral  weakness  which  past  and  even  for- 
given sin  has  left  behind  it. 

Secondly,  we  must  struggle  with  temptations,  and  we 


OtJR   NORMAL   St  ATE.  113 

niU3t  struggle  with  them  with  amazing  courage,  not  as 
foes  whose  lines  we  have  to  break,  and  then  the  country 
will  be  clear  before  us,  but  as  foes  who  will  thicken  as  we 
advance.  The  weakest  come  first,  at  least  if  we  except 
those  which  tried  to  hinder  our  giving  ourselves  up  to  God 
at  the  first.  The  stronger  come  next..  The  robustness 
of  our  temptations  seems  to  be  in  proportion  to  our  growth 
in  grace.  The  choicest  are  kept  to  the  last.  We  shall 
one  day  have  to  give  battle  to  the  pretorians,  to  the  devil's 
bodyguard ;  and  probably  it  will  be  when  we  are  lying, 
white  and  weak,  on  a  death-bed.  We  must  bear  this  in 
mind  about  temptations,  else  we  shall  make  too  much  of 
our  victories,  and  be  disheartened  by  the  smallness  of 
their  results.  No  victory  that  we  gain  is  worth  anything 
to  the  victories  we  have  yet  to  gain.  Still,  a  victory  is 
always  a  victory. 

Our  third  enemies  are  our  trials ;  and  our  trials,  like 
our  temptations,  grow  as  we  advance.  We  are  forcing 
our  way  into  a  moie  difficult  country.  We  see  evil  where 
we  did  not  see  it  before.  Thus  we  have  more  things  to 
avoid  than  formerly.  We  are  attempting  greater  things, 
and  climbing  higher  hills.  All  this  has  its  encouraging 
side.  But  then  in  proportion  to  the  greatness  and  the 
height,  so  is  the  difficulty.  Then  holiness  has  a  whole 
brood  of  trials  and  troubles  of  its  own,  the  like  to  which 
do  not  exist  in  the  free-living,  easy-mannered,  fair-spoken 
world.  Its  interior  trials  are  enough  of  themselves  to 
keep  a  stout  saint  occupied  all  his  life  long.  Scaramelli 
wrote  an  entire  treatise  on  them.  Some  men  have  more, 
some  less.  What  is  necessary  to  remember  is  that  wa 
have  not  faced  our  worst  yet.  We  must  not  cry  victory 
when  the  battle  is  in  truth  but  just  begun. 
10*  a 


114  OUB    NORMAL   STATE. 

Fourthly,  we  have  to  struggle  against  the  changes  of 
our  own  faults.  After  all,  there  is  something  very  com 
fortable  in  a  habit,  when  once  the  labour  of  acquiring  it 
has  been  surmounted.  We  have  got  into  a  particular 
way,  and  it  is  a  trouble  to  be  put  out  of  it.  Improve- 
ments in  tools  only  make  them  more  awkward  at  first  to 
old  workmen.  David  felt  so  little  at  ease  in  Saul's  armour, 
that  he  went  back  to  his  shepherd's  dress  and  his  favour- 
ite old  sling.  So  it  is  with  ourselves.  We  get  into  a 
certain  way  with  ourselves,  a  certain  hatred  of  ourselves, 
and  a  certain  severity  with  ourselves.  It  was  hard  to 
get  used  to  it ;  but  we  did  so  at  last,  and  now  do  pretty 
well.  Then  by  age  or  outward  circumstances,  or  through 
some  interior  crisis,  our  faults  change,  and  we  have  a  new 
warfare  to  learn.  Moreover,  these  changes  of  our  faults 
are  often  imperceptible  at  the  time.  We  are  not  conscious 
of  what  is  going  on.  And  as  our  characters  sometimes 
turn  right  round,  we  may  go  on  neglecting  something 
which  we  ought  to  observe,  and  observing  something  we 
may  now  safely  neglect ;  nay,  we  may  even  be  playing 
the  game  of  some  new  passion,  while  we  think  we  are 
mortifying  old  ones.  This  is  a  perplexity.  It  annoys 
and  distracts  us  in  our  struggle,  even  if  it  does  nothing 
more.      We  must  be  prepared  for  it. 

Teasing  imperfections  are  our  fifth  enemy.  The  war- 
fare against  them  is  neither  dangerous  nor  dignified ;  but 
wearing,  harassing,  and  annoying.  Certain  infirmities 
seem  at  times  to  be  endowed  with  a  supernatural  vitality, 
and  will  not  be  put  down  even  by  our  most  earnest  and 
persevering  efforts.  Habits  of  carelessness  in  saying  office 
or  rosary,  slight  immortifications  at  meals,  the  use  of  par- 
ticular expressions,  matters  connected  with  external  com- 


OUR   NORMAL   STATE.  115 

posure  and  recollection,  are  all  instances  of  this  at  times. 
It  seems  vexatious  that  we  should  be  in  bondage  to  sucb 
very  little  things,  and  it  is  a  trial  both  of  faith  and  tem- 
per. But  God  sometimes  allows  that  we  should  entirely 
miss  our  aim  when  striking  at  them,  in  order  that  our 
devotion  may  be  hidden  from  the  eyes  of  others,  who 
might  wither  it  by  praise,  or  that  we  ourselves  should 
bear  about  a  thorn  in  the  flesh,  as  the  apostle  did,  to  keep 
us  humble,  and  make  us  truly  despise  ourselves.  Per- 
haps grace  is  often  saved  under  the  shadow  of  an  imper- 
fection; and  there  are  many  imperfections  which  are  more 
obvious  and  humiliating  than  really  guilty  or  unworthy 
in  the  sight  of  God.  Under  any  circumstances,  the  tire- 
some struggle  with  our  imperfections  will  not  end,  even 
with  Extreme  Unction.  It  will  cease  only  with  our 
breath,  only  when  we  are  actually  laid  to  rest  in  the 
bosom  of  our  indulgent  and  heavenly  Father. 

The  sixth  object  with  which  we  have  to  struggle  is  the 
subtraction  of  divine  light  and  sensible  aid,  whether  it 
come  upon  us  as  a  purifying  trial  or  as  a  chastisement  for 
unfaithfulness.  This  is  like  Jacob's  struggle  when  he 
wrestled  with  God )  or  rather  it  is  a  wrestling  with  God, 
self,  and  the  evil  one,  all  at  once.  For  no  sooner  does 
God  withdraw  His  sensible  assistance  from  us  than  the 
devil  attacks  us  with  renewed  violence,  and  we  ourselves 
give  way  to  wounded  self-love  and  to  despondency.  It  is 
with  us  as  with  the  Israelites  in  Egypt :  we  have  mora 
bricks  to  make,  and  the  straw  not  found  us  as  of  old.  At 
least  it  seems  so.  Yet  God  is  with  us  when  we  know  it 
not.  We  could  not  so  much  as  hold  on,  if  He  were  not 
so.  But  it  is  hard  to  realize  this  with  a  sheer  and  simple 
faith,  when  sensation  and  sentiment  are  quite  the  other 


1 16  OUR   NORMAL   STATE. 

way.  Mercifully  this  struggle  is  not  perpetual.  It  comes 
and  goes;  and  if  we  could  get  ourselves  to  look  on  it 
beforehand  as  a  significant  visitation  of  mysterious  love, 
we  should  be  able  to  bear  up  against  it  more  gently  and 
more  manfully  than  we  do.  Ordinarily  we  weary  our- 
selves by  too  much  of  violent  effort,  and  then  lie  helpless 
and  supine  in  a  kind  of  petulant  despair.  Losing  our 
temper  with  God  is  a  more  common  thing  in  the  spiritual 
life  than  many  men  suppose.  It  dashes  back  to  eartb 
many  a  rising  prayer,  and  vitiates  many  a  brave  mortifi 
cation.  Happy  they  who  can  wrestle  with  God  in  uncom- 
plaining prayer,  in  self-collected  reverence,  and  yet  by 
His  grace  with  the  vigorous  will  to  have  the  better  of 
Him. 

This  brings  me  to  the  seventh  enemy  with  whom  we 
have  to  struggle.  It  is  familiarity ;  and  familiarity  espe- 
cially with  three  things,  prayer,  sacraments,  and  tempta- 
tions. As  I  have  said  before,  to  have  relations  with  God 
is  a  very  fearful  thing.  To  love  God  is  a  bold  and  ardu- 
ous thing.  It  was  of  His  compassion  that  He  made  that 
to  be  of  precept  which  was  in  itself  so  unspeakable  a 
privilege.  Yet  it  is  hard  to  love  warmly  and  tenderly, 
and  to  love  reverently  as  well.  Hence  it  is  that,  with  so 
many,  familiarity  fastens  upon  love,  and  blights  it. 
Familiarity  in  prayer  consists  of  meditating  without  pre- 
paring, of  using  words  without  weighing  them,  of  slouch- 
ing postures,  of  indeliberate  epithets,  of  peevish  complaint, 
and  of  lightly  making  the  petitions  of  saints  our  own. 
All  this  is  an  intolerable  familiarity  with  the  great  ma- 
jesty of  God.  It  grows  upon  us.  Use  brings  slovenli- 
ness, and  slovenliness  makes  us  profane.  Familiarity 
with  the  sacraments  consists  in  going  to  confession  with 


OUR   NORMAL   STATE.  11? 

a  very  cursory  examination,  and  a  mere  flying  act  of  con- 
trition, making  no  thanksgiving  afterwards  and  setting 
no  store  by  our  penance ;  as  if  we  were  privileged  people, 
and  were  entitled  to  take  liberties  with  the  Precious 
Blood.  With  the  Blessed  Eucharist  it  consists  of  fre- 
quent Communion  without  leave,  or  forcing  leave,  or 
making  no  preparation,  or  careless  thanksgiving,  as  if 
forsooth  our  whole  life  were  to  be  considered  adequate 
preparation  and  adequate  thanksgiving,  and  that  it  shows 
liberty  of  spirit  to  be  on  such  free  and  easy  terms  with 
the  Adorable  Sacrament.  Familiarity  with  temptations 
is  to  lose  our  horror  of  their  defiling  character,  to  be 
remiss  and  dilatory  in  repelling  them,  to  feel  our  loathing 
of  them  diminish,  not  to  be  sufficiently  afraid  of  them, 
and  to  take  for  granted  that  we  are  so  established  in  any 
particular  virtue  that  our  falling  is  out  of  all  question. 
These  familiarities  grow  upon  us  like  the  insidious 
approaches  of  sleep.  We  feel  an  increasing  reluctance  to 
throw  them  off  and  shake  them  from  us.  It  will  not  be 
so  much  the  thoughts  of  hell  and  purgatory,  wholesome 
as  they  are,  which  will  keep  us  right,  as  frequent  medi- 
tation on  the  adorable  attributes  of  God.  Oh  if  our  flesh 
were  but  alway  pierced  with  the  arrows  of  holy  fear,  how 
much  more  angelic  would  our  lives  become  ! 

2.  Such  is  our  struggle,  and  such  the  seven  principal 
enemies  with  whom  we  have  to  contend.  The  second 
disposition  in  which  I  make  our  normal  state  to  reside  is 
fatigue.  This  is  something  more  than  the  pleasant  feel- 
ing of  being  tired.  Indeed  if  there  is  pleasure  iu  it 
sometime,  it  is  far  more  often  a  weary  and  oppressive 
pain.  For  the  fatigue  of  which  I  speak  is  caused  by  the 
struggle  which  we  have  just  been  considering.    It  consists 


118  OUR   NORMAL   STATE. 

first  of  faintness,  which  the  mere  continuity  of  the  combat 
superinduces;  secondly,  of  disgust,  a  loathing  for  all 
sacred  things ;  thirdly,  of  irritability,  not  only  from  fre- 
quent defeat,  but  from  the  harassing  nature  of  the  war- 
fare ;  fourthly,  of  low  spirits,  especially  when  the  arm  cf 
grace  is  less  sensibly  upholding  us;  and  fifthly,  of  a 
feeling  of  the  impossibility  of  persevering,  which  is  not 
despair,  because  we  do  not  cease  our  efforts,  only  we  make 
them  with  the  mere  force  of  the  grace -assisted  will,  not 
with  the  hope  and  energy  of  the  heart.  This  fatigue  ma) 
obviously  be  felt  during  a  battle  as  well  as  after  it :  and 
as  we  may  both  offend  God,  and  also  do  very  foolish 
things  injurious  to  our  own  interests,  under  the  heavy 
hand  of  this  fatigue,  it  is  important  for  us  to  get  a  clear 
idea  of  it,  and  to  investigate  its  causes. 

These  causes  are  seven  in  number,  and  each  of  them 
is  accompanied  by  its  own  peculiar  trials,  dangers,  and 
temptations.  The  first  cause  is  the  constant  opposition 
to  nature  which  the  spiritual  life  implies.  I  am  not 
speaking  so  much  of  voluntary  mortification,  though  that 
also  must  be  taken  into  the  account.  But  everything  we 
do  in  the  spiritual  life  is  contrary  to  the  will  and  propen- 
sions  of  our  corrupt  nature.  There  is  no  pleasure  to 
which  we  dare  yield  an  unlimited  assent.  There  is  no 
spiritual  enjoyment  which  is  not  more  or  less  suffering  to 
poor  nature.  What  a  joy  is  prayer;  yet  to  nature  morti- 
fication even  is  less  irksome  than  prayer.  Our  tastes, 
wishes,  inclinations,  instincts,  what  we  seek  and  what  we 
ehun,  are  all  more  or  less  thwarted  by  the  effort  to  be 
holy.  When  nature  offers  us  any  assistance,  we  doubt 
her  and  suspect  her  intentions,  and  when  we  use  the 
force  she  supplies,  we  do  it  in  a  harsh,  ungraceful  manner 


OUR   NORMAL   STATE.  119 

towards  her.  Her  very  activity,  which  is  tht  making  of 
bo  many  of  us,  we  regard  almost  as  an  enemy,  hurrying 
as  as  it  does  out  of  the  calm  presence  of  God,  and  into 
endless  indiscretions.  The  custody  of  the  senses,  even 
■uch  an  amount  of  it  as  is  an  absolute  duty,  is  a  bondage 
which  nature  is  ill  able  to  bear.  In  a  word,  in  propor- 
tion  as  grace  takes  possession  of  us,  we  grow  out  of  sym- 
pathy  with  our  own  very  nature,  and  in  some  respects 
with  the  outward  creation  generally.  This  becomes 
visible  to  the  eye  when  it  reaches  the  point  which  it  does 
often  attain  in  saints  and  extatic  persons.  Their  illnesses, 
sufferings,  and  apparently  unnatural  valetudinarian  states 
are  simply  the  result  of  the  supernatural  and  mystical 
character  of  their  lives.  As  mystical  theologians  teach, 
the  nutritive,  nervous,  and  cerebral  systems  are  ail 
deranged  by  the  entire  possession  which  grace  has  taken 
of  the  soul,  especially  in  those  whose  lives  are  contem- 
plative and  interior.  But  this  begins  in  a  slight  measure, 
as  soon  as  we  commence  the  spiritual  life  in  good  earnest, 
anu  it  must  obviously  produce  fatigue.  The  mere  rowing 
against  the  stream  perpetually  must  make  us  stiff  and 
tired.  And  not  only  can  there  be  no  peace  with  nature, 
but,  except  in  an  extasy,  no  truce  either ;  and  from  what 
the  saints  tell  us,  it  appears  that  nature  takes  a  terrific 
vengeance   on   them  for  their  extasies,   when   they  are 


Another  cause  of  fatigue  is  in  the  uncertainty  in  which 
temptation  so  often  leaves  us,  as  to  whether  we  have  con- 
sented or  not.  To  walk  blindfold  or  to  find  our  way  in 
the  dark  is  in  itself  a  tiring  thing.  Clear  light  mitigate9 
fatigue.  But  when  we  are  uncertain  whether  we  havi 
offended  God  or  not,  whether  buch  or  such  an  action  was 


120  OUR   NORMAL   STATE. 

against  our  vows  or  resolutions,  we  lose  our  elasticily. 
If  we  have  really  conquered,  we  have  no  sense  of  victory 
to  buoy  us  up ;  and  if  we  were  vanquished,  we  should  be 
better  able  to  face  the  disaster  manfully,  if  there  was  no 
doubt  about  it.  But  as  a  mile's  walk  with  the  sun  in 
our  faces  or  the  dust  in  our  eyes  is  longer  than  ten  with- 
out such  annoyances,  so  is  it  with  this  uncertainty  which 
temptation  casts  over  us  in  spite,  as  it  goes  away.  It 
tires  and  unnerves  us. 

A  third  cause  of  fatigue  is  to  be  found  in  the  daily 
monotonous  renewal  of  the  combat.  Sameness  is  weari- 
some in  itself.  This  is  in  great  measure  the  wretched- 
ness of  imprisonment,  however  comfortable  and  roomy 
our  dungeon  may  be.  The  sun  shines  in  at  our  window, 
the  morning  breeze  comes  there,  and  the  little  birds  sing 
without ;  and  for  a  moment  our  waking  thoughts  do  not 
realize  where  we  are  or  what  we  have  to  encounter.  But 
when  we  are  fully  aware  that  we  have  another  day  before 
us  of  unchequered  monotonous  confinement,  the  soul 
sinks  within  us,  forlorn  and  weary,  even  after  long  hours 
of  refreshing  sleep.  So  it  is  in  the  spiritual  life.  Is  it 
to  be  always  combat  ?  Is  the  pressure  never  to  be  taken 
off?  Is  the  strain  never  to  be  relaxed?  Is  the  hold 
never  to  be  let  go  ?  And  when  we  are  obliged  to  answer 
ourselves  with  the  simple  Never,  this  hourly  renewal  of 
the  old,  old  strife,  becomes  almost  insupportable.  Take 
any  one  besetting  infirmity,  for  instance  want  of  govern- 
ment of  the  tongue,  or  unworthy  pleasure  in  eating  and 
drinking,  how  jaded  and  disgusted  we  become  long  before 
we  have  made  any  sensible  impression  upon  the  strength 
of  the  evil  habit ! 

A  fourth  cause  of  fatigue  is  in  the  little  progress  wo 


OUR   NORMAL   STATE.  121 

make  in  a  long  time.  Success  hinders  fatigue.  The 
excitement  carries  us  on,  and  supplies  fresh  forces  to 
nature,  enabling  her  to  draw  on  the  secret  funds  of  her 
constitution,  which,  otherwise,  nothing  but  the  death- 
struggle  would  have  brought  out.  On  the  contrary,  de- 
feat is  akin  to  lassitude.  Besides  this,  slow  walking  is 
more  tiring  than  fast.  Men  hurry  up  and  down  a  short 
quarter-deck,  because  a  funeral  pace  makes  them  low- 
spirited  and  footsore.  These  are  all  types  of  what  the 
spirit  feels.  Our  small  progress  deprives  us  of  all  natural 
encouragement.  For  our  minds  must  be  thoroughly  satu- 
rated with  supernatural  principles,  always  to  realize  that 
one  evil  thought  repelled,  one  angry  humour  smartly 
chastised,  one  base  envy  well  warred  down,  one  thorough 
Deo  gratias  in  a  piece  of  ill-luck,  may  be  really  hundreds 
of  leagues  of  progress ;  and  each  of  them  worth  more 
than  the  whole  world  to  us,  as  something  which  pleases 
God,  and  which  God  alone  has  enabled  us  to  do.  Un- 
fortunately we  usually  realize  our  supernatural  principles 
most  when  we  feel  fatigue  least;  and  it  is  for  this  reason 
thai  our  slow  progress  is  so  wearisome.  A  calm  at  sea 
is  fatiguing,  even  though  no  physical  effort  is  called  for 
on  our  part.  To  scale  Parnassus  in  the  face  of  a  blus- 
tering wind  and  a  drenching  rain  is  less  tiring  than  to 
rock  idly  and  helplessly  for  a  day  in  the  Gulf  of  Corinth, 
with  beauty  enough  in  sight  to  feed  mind  and  eye  fof 
weeks. 

The  universality  of  the  vigilance  which  is  required  in 
the  spiritual  life  is  a  fifth  source  of  fatigue.  We  have 
not  only  to  be  always  on  the  alert,  but  our  watchfulness 
has  such  a  wide  extent  of  ground  to  cover.  Everything 
else  in  the  spiritual  life  we  can  concentrate,  except  our 
11 


122  OUR   NORMAL    STATE. 

vigilance;  ai,d  that  we  cannot  concentrate.  The  nearest 
approach  to  it  is  the  practice  of  particular  examen  of 
conscience,  quite  one  of  the  most  helpful  and  operative 
practices  of  the  spiritual  life.  But  that  is  not  in  reality 
bo  much  a  concentration  of  our  vigilance,  as  that  the 
fixing  our  attention  very  earnestly  on  one  fault  helps  to 
keep  us  awake,  and  makes  our  eyes  quick  to  see  anything 
stir  and  our  ears  sharp  for  the  slightest  sound.  And  who 
will  say  that  particular  examen  is  not  fatiguing  in  itself? 
He  is  a  happy  man  who  keeps  to  it  without  missing,  for 
as  much  as  one  single  moon.  Truly  vigilance  is  a  tiring 
thing  in  itself:  what  then  must  it  be,  when  we  add  to  it 
universality  and  uninterruptedness  ?  Yet  such  is  the 
vigilance  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil  exact  from 
us  continually.  Liberty  of  spirit  is  a  mighty  boon.  It 
dispenses  with  many  things.  But  woe  be  to  him  who 
dreams  that  it  dispenses  him  from  watchfulness ! 

A  sixth  cause  of  fatigue  is  iu  the  mere  wear  and  tear 
of  duration.  A  light  work  will  tire,  if  it  is  sufficiently 
prolonged ;  and  the  work  of  the  spiritual  life  is  simply 
unending,  and  the  pressure  of  it  continuous.  It  is  true 
that  this  fatigue  is  easier  to  bear  than  some  of  the  others, 
because  there  is  something  consoling  in  the  thought  that 
we  have  persevered  so  far.  Nevertheless  it  forms  one  of 
the  difficulties  of  perseverance.  For  while  we  feel  fa- 
tigued at  the  present  moment,  the  future  presents  us  with 
no  other  prospect.  A  life-long  vista  of  work  stretches 
before  us:  long  or  short  as  it  may  please  God;  still 
always  work.  There  is  no  retiring  on  a  pension  or  half- 
pay  from  the  military  service  of  the  spiritual  life. 

Seventhly,  fatigue  is  generated  by  fatigue  itself.  We 
get  tired  of  being  tired.  And  this  produces  a  sort  of 
torpor  most  dangerous  to  the  soul.     We  become  indiffe- 


OUR   NORMAL    STATE.  123 

rent  to  things  We  grow  callous  to  the  feeling  of  oui 
own  unworthiness,  to  the  horror  of  sin,  to  the  gloriou? 
desirableness  of  God  and  of  union  with  Hiin.  We  are 
like  a  broken  musical  instrument.  We  give  no  sound 
when  we  are  fingered.  There  is  something  in  this  state 
analogous  to  the  swept  and  garnished  heart  of  which  our 
Saviour  speaks,  into  which  seven  devils  might  easily 
enter,  worse  than  the  first  who  had  been  ejected  from  it. 
The  only  safety  in  this  kind  of  fatigue  is  more  occupa- 
tion. We  must  burden  still  more  the  already  overbur- 
dened spirit.  This  remedy  requires  faith.  Nothing  but 
snow  itself  will  draw  the  frost  out  of  the  bitten  limbs  of 
the  sealer  of  the  Antarctic.  It  is  a  cruel  cure,  but  a 
specific.  So  it  is  with  this  tiring  of  being  tired.  If  you 
do  not  load  it  more,  even  to  making  it  restless,  angry, 
rebellious,  if  you  will,  —  in  a  short  time  you  will  be  on 
the  brink  of  seriously  throwing  up  the  service  of  God 
altogether. 

These  are  our  seven  fatigues ;  and  I  am  almost  afraid 
of  what  I  have  written.  I  fear  lest  it  should  discourage 
you.  Alas  !  it  is  not  the  truest  kindness  to  throw  a  false 
rose-coloured  light  over  the  harsh  and  rocky  portions  of 
the  spiritual  landscape.  Man  must  not  represent  as 
wholly  ease,  what  God  has  made  in  part  most  difficult. 
But  you  must  remember,  this  is  only  one  side  of  the  pic- 
ture, and  the  dark  side.  I  have  had  to  dwell  upon  it 
here,  because  this  was  the  place  for  it  3  and  I  have  put  it 
at  the  worst,  for  I  have  assumed  throughout  that  God 
uniformly  subtracted  sensible  sweetness  and  interior  con- 
solation from  you  all  the  while.  Yet  this  is  hardly  ever 
so,  perhaps  never,  and  certainly  never  with  any  souls  to 
whom  he  has  not  first  given  immense  gifts  of  courage, 
fortitude  and  endurance,  or  a  peculiar  attraction  to  walk 


124  OUR   NORMAL   STATE. 

by  faith  only.  When  I  come  to  the  chapter  on  Spiritual 
Idleness,  I  shall  show  you  how  to  avoid  the  dangers  with 
which  this  fatigue  is  fraught.  Meanwhile  1  will  say  ne 
more  than  this,  first,  that  the  spiritual  joys  of  holiness  fai 
more  than  counterbalance  its  fatigue,  and  secondly,  that 
whatever  you  do,  I  counsel  you  not  to  rush  from  the  mo- 
mentary and  apparent  dulness  and  uninterestingness  of 
the  things  of  God  to  seek  refuge  and  consolation  in  crea- 
tures. The  consequences  of  such  a  step  are  dreadful. 
I  had  almost  said  irremediable.  But  I  have  seen  things 
which  show  that  it  is  not  quite  irremediable.  I  hope  no 
mistake  of  any  kind  in  the  spiritual  life  is  irremediable. 
The  case  of  a  tepid  religious  has  been  quoted  as  such. 
But  we  know  that  even  such  cases  are  curable,  because 
they  have  been  cured.  And  what  can  be  incurablc\  if 
they  are  not  ? 

3.  The  third  disposition  which  makes  up  our  normal 
state  is  Rest,  seemingly  the  very  opposite  of  the  Fatigue 
of  which  I  have  just  spoken.  But  we  must  not  imagino 
this  rest  to  consist  either  in  a  cessation  from  struggle,  or 
a  deliverance  from  fatigue.  This  is  contrary  to  the  idea 
of  the  spiritual  life.  The  rest  of  which  I  speak  is  a  truer 
rest,  a  higher  rest,  a  rest  of  altogether  a  different  kind 
It  has  these  five  characteristics.  First,  it  is  supernatural- 
Tired  nature  cannot  supply  it.  It  were  no  rest  at  all  if 
it  came  from  any  fountain  short  of  heaven.  If  it  comes 
from  any  human  heart,  it  can  only  be  from  the  Sacred 
Heart  of  God  made  Man.  Secondly,  it  lasts  but  for  a 
little  while  at  a  time.  It  comes  and  goes  like  an  angel's 
visitation.  Yet,  thirdly,  brief  as  its  visit  is,  its  effects 
are  lasting.  It  refreshes  and  animates  us  in  a  way  which 
no  earthly  consolation  can  even  imitate,  much  less  rival. 
It  is  food  in  the  strength  of  which  we  can  go  all  the  way 


OUR  NORMAL   STATE.  125 

to  the  mountain  of  God.  Fourthly,  it  is  very  peace- 
ful. It  produces  no  excitement.  It  moves  away  none 
of  our  existing  devotions  or  spiritual  exercises.  It  is  no 
disturbing  force  to  our  vocation,  no  overruling  impulse  to 
our  discretion.  And  last  of  all,  it  unites  us  to  God  :  and 
what  is  that  union  but  a  participation  of  His  eternal  tran- 
quillity, a  foretaste  of  the  Sabbath  in  His  paternal  lap 
for  evermore  ? 

In  trying  to  draw  out  for  you  the  varieties  of  thid 
welcome  and  beautiful  rest,  I  must  caution  you  not  to  be 
CNst  down  if  I  make  it  consist  in  things  which  seem  far 
abjve  your  present  attainments.  The  fact  is  that  these 
hijjh  things  are  begun  in  you.  It  may  still  be  with  them 
th  iir  day  of  small  beginnings.  Nevertheless  they  are 
be^un ;  and  with  them  comes  the  gift  of  rest,  to  increase 
a*  they  increase,  but  to  be  from  the  very  first  a  substan- 
tia I  gift  of  our  compassionate  Father  who  is  in  heaven. 

This  divine  rest  consists  first  in  detachment  from 
cr>  itures.  As  we  grow  in  holiness  our  attachments  to 
en  atures  weaken,  and  those  that  remain  riveted  are  ri- 
vev^.d  in  God.  It  is  not  that  sanctity  lies  in  unfeelingness. 
L<>'  k  at  St.  Francis  of  Sales  stretched  on  the  floor  of  the 
roo'n  where  his  mother  has  just  died,  and  sobbing  as  if 
hi>  heart  was  broken.  Strong  angels  look  at  the  pros- 
tone  saint  without  upbraiding ;  for  his  grief  is  a  human 
bMiness  rather  than  a  human  weakness.  Not  for  a 
hioment,  said  he,  in  all  that  tempest  of  grief  was  his 
will  removed  one  line's  breadth  from  the  sweet  sovereign 
will  of  God.  All  that  is  irregular,  earthly  and  inordinate 
in  our  attachments  fades  out.  Nay,  we  are  sensibly  con- 
scious to  ourselves  of  an  actual  decay  of  all  strong  feel- 
ings, of  whatevci  kind,  in  our  heart3.  And  the  absence 
11* 


126  Otlft  NORMAL  STATE. 

nf    these    is   rest;    for    strong   earthly   feelings   are   a 
tyranny. 

Secondly,  we  have  now  no  worldly  end  in  view;  and 
thus  there  is  nothing  proximate  to  disquiet  us.  What 
success  can  we  have  to  look  forward  to  ?  Is  it  a  point 
in  riches  we  would  fain  reach  ?  Or  a  summit  on  which 
an  ambitious  imagination  has  often  placed  us  in  our  day- 
dreams ?  Or  a  scheme  that  we  are  burning  to  realize  ? 
Such  things  belong  not  to  the  spiritual.  They  know 
nothing  of  them ;  except  that  they  have  been  burned  by 
them  in  former  times.  They  have  scathed  them,  and 
passed  on.  Not  even  works  of  mercy  now  can  be  ends 
of  themselves,  ends  in  which  to  rest.  They  are  but 
stepping-stones  we  lay  down  for  God's  glory  and  His 
angels  to  pass  over  the  earth  and  bless  its  misery.  There 
may  be  rest  in  straining  to  a  supernatural  end,  or  the 
very  strain  may  be  more  welcome  than  the  most  luxurious 
rest.  But  there  can  be  no  rest  for  those  who  are  straining 
after  a  worldly  end,  blameless  even  if  perchance  it  be. 

Thirdly,  holiness  brings  us  rest,  because  it  delivers  us 
even  from  spiritual  ambition,  in  any  of  its  various  forms. 
As  I  have  already  said,  the  inordinate  pursuit  of  virtue 
is  itself  a  vice,  and  the  anxious  desire  to  be  speedily  rid 
of  all  our  imperfections  is  a  delusion  of  self-love.  To 
desire  supernatural  favours  is  almost  a  sin;  to  ask  fo* 
supernatural  tokens  is  nearly  always  an  indiscretion 
Present  grace  is  not  only  the  field  of  our  labour ;  it  i» 
also  the  haven  of  our  rest.  We  must  trust  God  and  be 
childlike  with  Him  even  in  our  spiritual  progress.  We 
must  make  a  bed  of  our  vileness  and  a  pillow  of  our  im- 
perfections ;  and  nothing  can  soil  us  while  humility  is  out 
rest.  Ambition  is  not  the  less  wrong,  nor  greediness  the 
less  repulsive,  because  they  are  spiritual.     When  God 


OUR   NORMAL   STATE. 


127 


feeds  us  witi  His  hand,  is  that  a  time  for  eagerness? 
When  Spiritual  ambition  is  mortified,  no'«into  indifference, 
but  into  patience,  prayer,  and  calm  hope,  then  there  is 
rest. 

One  consequence  of  all  these  dispositions  is  a  readiness 
to  die;  and  this  is  in  itself  a  fourth  source  of  rest.  What 
is  there  to  keep  us  ?  Why  should  we  linger  on  ?  Dare 
we  pray  with  St.  Martin  to  stay  ind  work  if  we  are  ne- 
cessary to  God's  people  ?  Are  we  so  foolish  as  to  dream 
we  have  a  mission,  which  is  to  delay  us  like  Mary  after 
the  Ascension,  or  the  Evangelist  St.  John  till  the  first 
century  was  run  out  ?  When  we  are  going  a  journey, 
and  are  not  ready,  we  are  all  bustle  and  heat.  Prepara- 
tions have  to  be  made,  our  last  orders  given,  and  our 
farewells  said.  But  when  all  is  done,  and  it  is  not  time 
yet,  we  sit  down  and  rest.  The  rooms  do  not  look  like 
home,  because  we  are  going,  and  our  attachments  are 
packed  up,  like  the  works,  merits,  and  forgiven  sins  of  a 
dying  man.  If  we  have  any  feeling  besides  that  of  rest, 
it  is  rather  impatience.  But  in  a  spiritual  man  impatience 
to  die  would  be  no  trifling  im mortification.  Consequently 
the  readiness  to  die,  without  impatience,  is  rest.  The 
contented  animal  that  stretches  itself  in  the  shade  of  the 
noonday  field  does  not  rest  with  greater  sensible  enjoy- 
ment than  the  immortal  soul  that  is  bravely  de'ached 
from  mortal  things. 

It  belongs  to  our  nature  to  incline  to  rest  in  ends,  and 
not  in  means.  This  opens  out  to  us  a  fifth  source  of  rest. 
For  everything  is  an  end,  no  matter  how  transient,  if 
only  it  be  referred  to  God.  Indeed  it  is  an  end  in  a  sense 
in  which  no  merely  earthly  thing  can  be  so ;  for  it  parti- 
cipates in  the  end  of  all  ends  and  ultimate  rest  of  all 
things,  God  himself.     Hence  our  very  struggle  is  rest, 


128  Otm,   NORMAL   STATE. 

our  very  fatigue  rest;  for  they  are  both  made  up  of  count 
less  things  each  of  which  is  in  itself  a  resting-place  anc 
an  end.  Has  not  every  one  felt  at  times,  only  too  rarely, 
the  joy  steal  over  him  that  he  has  no  wish  or  will  before 
Mm  ?  Nothing  is  unfulfilled,  because  God  is  everywhere. 
He  feels  for  God  and  has  found  Him;  and  so  he  has 
nothing  to  seek,  nothing  to  desire.  Possible  evils  are  al- 
lowed to  present  themselves  to  his  imagination,  only  that 
he  may  realize  more  utterly  the  gladness  of  his  complete 
indifference  to  them.  He  is  at  rest.  Earth  has  hold  of 
none  of  his  heart-strings.  The  whole  world  is  full  of  ends 
to  him.  He  can  lie  down  anywhere;  for  everything  is  a 
U)d,  because  he  refers  all  things  to  God.  If  this  kind  of 
rr.st  would  sometimes  last  a  little  longer — but  God  knows 
b*st.  Even  the  wish  would  break  the  deliciousness  of 
fc'u  it  heavenly  rest. 

Humility  furnishes  us  with  a  sixth  source  of  rest.  And 
this  in  two  ways.  First  of  all,  it  makes  us  contented, 
contented  with  our  infirmities,  though  not  contented  with 
ourselves.  God  forbid  this  last  should  ever  be  !  Thus 
it  makes  us  unanxious,  ungrasping,  childlike,  and  calm ; 
and  there  is  rest  in  the  very  sound  of  all  those  words. 
Secondly,  it  brings  us  rest  in  another  way.  For  it  not 
only  subdues  us  by  keeping  us  down  in  the  sense  of  our 
Dwn  nothingness,  but  it  exhilarates  us  by  pouring  the 
pj.re  light  of  grace  around  us  and  making  us  feel  how 
entirely  we  owe  everthing  to  God.  Did  any  one  ever  see 
a  humble  man  with  an  unquiet  heart?  Except  when 
some  storm  of  grief  or  loss  swept  over  him,  never! 
Humility  is  rest,  sweet  rest  and  safe,  and  which  leaves  no 
reproaches  or  misgivings  behind,  and  it  is  a  rest  withirj 
the  reach  of  the  lowest  of  us. 

There  is  a  seventh  source  of  rest,  of  which  it  is  hard 


OUR   NORMAL   STATE.  129 

to  speak,  because  words  cannot  tell  it.  They  only  stand 
for  signs,  which  give  some  idea  of  it.  It  is  the  rest 
which  comes  from  the  bare  thought  of  God,  or  rather 
which  is  itself  the  bare  thought  of  God.  Sometimes,  in 
a  beautiful  climate,  we  come  upon  a  scene,  which  by  its 
surpassing  beauty  so  satisfies  mind,  heart  and  senses,  that 
we  sit  entranced,  taking  it  in  without  understanding  it, 
and  resting  in  the  simple  enjoyment  of  the  sight.  Thus 
for  a  while  a  man  may  sit  amid  the  folds  of  Etna,  be- 
neath a  shady  tree,  on  the  marvellous  mountain-shelf  of 
Taormina,  and  look  out  upon  the  scene.  Everything  thv<t 
wood  and  water,  rock  and  mountain,  dazzling  sky  aud 
translucent  air  can  do,  with  the  grand  spirit  of  old  history 
brooding  over  all,  is  there.  It  cannot  be  analyzed  or  os.- 
plained.  We  are  taken  in  the  nets  of  a  beauty  which 
masters  us;  and  the  sheer  thought  of  it  is  a  joy  without 
thought  for  hours.  This  is  a  poor  way  of  typifying  the 
rest  which  is  in  the  glorious,  overshadowing  thought  of 
God.  It  is  a  self-sufficing  rest,  not  only  because  Hi  is 
almighty,  all-holy  and  all-wise,  nor  because  He  is  our  0(vn 
near  and  fatherly  God,  but  simply  and  sheerly  because  He 
is  God.  Words  will  make  it  no  clearer.  God  give?  it 
to  us  sometimes  and  we  know  it;  and  seen  through  it, 
brighter  than  Sicilian  air,  more  limpid  than  Arethusa's 
fountain,  our  struggle  and  fatigue  look  fair  and  delectable 
in  that  heavenly  medium.  But  in  whatever  measure 
God  visits  us  with  this  sort  of  light,  true  it  is  that  such 
is  the  normal  state  of  our  spiritual  life,  —  struggle  and 
fatigue,  and  not  only  after  these  but  also  during  these, 
there  remaineth  a  sabbath  for  the  people  of  God  :  for  they 
rest  in  the  languors  of  love  here,  till  their  rest  deepens 
into  His  eternal  bosom  hereafter. 
I 


130  PATIENCE. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

PATIENCE. 

The  three  dispositions  which  compose  the  normal  state 
of  the  spiritual  life,  struggle,  fatigue,  and  rest,  are  each 
of  them  beset  with  a  darkness  and  difficulty  of  their  own, 
requiring  attendant  virtues  to  enlighten  them.  Struggle 
obviously  requires  patience;  fatigue  is  only  safely  endured 
when  singleness  of  purpose  secures  us  from  human  respect; 
and  rest  is  in  need  of  courageous  mortification.  In  this 
chapter,  therefore,  we  must  speak  of  patience. 

Is  it  not  true  that  we  do  not  ordinarily  appreciate  the 
importance  of  this  virtue  in  the  spiritual  life  ?  We  readily 
admit  the  importance  of  prayer,  examen,  mortification, 
and  spiritual  reading,  as  means  of  holy  living,  and  as 
forming  a  necessary  portion  of  the  ascetical  exercises  of 
each  day ;  but  it  is  to  be  doubted  whether  we  allow  its 
proper  place  to  the  exercise  of  patience.  I  am  speaking 
especially  to  persons  living  in  the  world ;  and  whose  holi- 
ness consequently  is  of  a  more  hidden  character  than  that 
of  religious,  external  circumstances  concentrating  it  within, 
and  not  providing  it  with  the  almost  hourly  beautiful  de- 
velopments in  which  it  would  display  itself  with  graceful 
freedom  in  conventual  life.  I  say  that  the  holiness  of  a 
holy  person  in  the  world  is  of  a  more  hidden  character 
than  that  of  a  religious;  and  it  would  seem  at  first  sight 
as  if  this  gave  the  secular  the  advantage.  God  forbid ! 
[f  external  circumstances  make    holiness  in  the  world 


PATIENCE.  131 

more  hidden,  and  so  form  it  into  an  interior  spirit,  th« 
religious  enjoys  the  inestimable  privilege  of  obedience, 
which  is  a  continual  supernatural  pressure  upon  the  soul, 
training  it  in  the  most  delicate  interior  spirit,  and  for  the 
absence  of  which  nothing  else  can  compensate,  and  which 
is  unlike  any  obedience  a  secular  can  pay  to  his  director. 
But  I  make  much  of  the  fact,  which  both  experience  and 
the  published  lives  of  holy  persons  attest,  that  the  holi- 
ness of  a  person  in  the  world  is  more  hidden ;  because  it 
has  sometimes  been  the  fashion  to  write  spiritual  books 
in  a  strain  of  hyperbole  and  exaggeration,  quite  alien  to 
the  calm  discretion  and  sober  moderation  which  is  need- 
ful in  handling  such  matters,  and  the  upshot  of  which  is 
to  represent  all  holiness  to  be  in  the  cloister,  and  all  the 
world  beside  a  reprobate  mass.  Besides  being  unsound 
doctrine,  the  exaggeration  is  foolish  in  every  way,  and 
leads  infallibly  to  a  low  standard  of  monastic  perfection ; 
just  as  in  the  days  of  Tronson,  worldly  priests  tried  to 
put  the  whole  burden  of  sacerdotal  perfection  upon  reli- 
gious, in  order  that  their  own  lives  might  be  more  easy 
and  more  free. 

There  is  hardly  any  subject  in  the  spiritual  life  more 
unfairly  dealt  with  than  this ;  yet  if  we  refer  to  older 
writers,  especially  the  three  great  Jesuit  ascetics,  Platus, 
Alvarez  de  Paz,  and  Da  Ponte,  there  is  no  portion  of  spi- 
ritual theology  in  which  the  principles  are  more  clearly 
laid  down  than  here.  Monastic  perfection  is  something 
far  higher  than  any  which  can  be  aimed  at  in  the  world. 
Yet  if  we  were  to  tell  a  nun  that  certain  practices  of  per- 
fection, which  as  a  matter  of  fact  are  practised  by  secu- 
lars, were   only  fit  for  the   convent,  we   should  at  once 


132  PATIENCE. 

lower  her  standard  of  her  own  obligations ;  and  it  would 
be  much  if  nature  did  not  get  the  better  of  grace,  and 
cause  her  to  settle  down  in  a  level  of  life  no  higher  than 
that  of  holy  seculars  in  society.  So,  if  we  represent  the 
perfection  attainable  by  a  secular  priest  as  the  property 
of  a  religious,  we  injure  at  once  both  the  religious  and 
the  secular,  by  lowering  their  standards.  The  religious 
recognizes  in  the  portrait  of  a  perfect  secular  the  picture 
of  a  perfect  monk,  and  the  secular  does  not  recognize 
himself  at  all.  And,  as  Tronson  shrewdly  remarks,  all 
this  is  the  more  mischievous  because  spiritual  writers 
have  often  observed  that,  while  it  is  a  sign  of  a  relaxed 
religious  order  to  run  down  perfection  in  the  world  and 
among  the  secular  clergy,  because  of  the  obvious  conse- 
quences to  the  order  itself  of  allowing  this  doctrine,  the 
secular  clergy,  "  far  from  testifying/'  I  am  using  Tron- 
sou's  words,  "this  esteem  of  their  own  vocation,  are  often 
th»*  first  to  combat  it.  If  you  do  not  believe  me,  make 
the  experiment  yourselves.  Put  forward  an  ecclesiastical 
ma*im  which  tends  to  establish  you  (he  is  speaking  to 
secular  priests)  in  perfection,  whether  it  concerns  detach- 
ment from  the  world,  or  the  flight  from  worldlmess,  or 
th*  condemnation  of  the  world's  maxims,  to  which  eccle- 
siastics are  more  particularly  and  more  strictly  obliged, 
and  you  will  see  that  ecclesiastics  themselves  will  be  the 
first  to  oppose  you;  so  that  they  who  ought  tu  defend 
these  truths,  and  who  are  engaged  by  their  state  to  main- 
tain them  with  the  utmost  vigour,  are  those  who  will  con- 
test them  with  the  greatest  heat  and  vehemence.  See 
what  we  are  come  to!"  *     The  same  principles  are  laid 

*  Entretiens,  tome  ii.,  p.  11. 


PATIENCE.  133 

down  by  Alvarez  de  Paz,*  by  Da  Ponte,f  and  by  Pla- 
tus.J  This  last  writer  says  that  the  Church  is  made  up 
of  three  orders,  laymen,  religious,  and  clerics ;  and  he  says 
of  this  last,  that  "  it  has  all  the  disadvantages,  without 
the  advantages  of  the  other  two  states.  For  clerics  have 
the  same  obligation  of  attaining  perfection  which  reli- 
gious have,  and  without  doubt  even  a  greater  one,  because 
of  the  excellence  of  their  ministry,  the  divinity  of  the 
sacraments,  and  the  government  of  souls.  Yet  they  have 
not  the  helps  which  religious  have,  nor  the  influx  of  a 
richer  grace. "  All  these  writers,  with  the  exception  of 
Tronson,  were  Jesuits :  I  quote  one  more,  also  a  Jesuit, 
as  spiritual  theology  has  been  one  of  their  man)'  excel- 
lences, and  their  writers  are  generally  the  most  clear 
and  defined,  uniting  science  with  their  unction.  It  is 
F.  Surin.§  He  says  of  the  condition  of  a  secular  priest 
that  his  "  state  demands  all  the  purity  of  life  of  religious 
and  of  solitaries ;  and  the  priest  would  delude  himself 
extremely,  who,  to  excuse  the  little  care  he  takes  to  aim 
at  the  highest  sanctity  (la  plus  haute  saintete),  when  any 
one  speaks  to  him  of  a  point  of  perfection,  such  as  recol- 
lection, prayer,  mortification,  and  zeal  for  the  glory  of 
God,  should  say  that  that  is  good  for  a  Carthusian,  a  Ca- 

*  De  Vita  Spirituali,  1.  ii.,  Pars  v.  de  Statu  Clericali. 

f  De  Perfectione  Ecclesiasticorum,  being  the  first  of  the  seven 
tracts  of  the  fourth  vol.  de  Perfectione. 

J  De  Bono  Status  Religiosi,  lib.  i.,  cap.  xxxvii.  Comparatio  status 
religiosi  cum  ordine  clericorum  simplicium.  See  also  "Walter  Hilton, 
the  English  Carthusian's  Treatise  to  a  Devout  Man  of  Secular  Estate, 
teaching  him  how  to  lead  a  spiritual  life  therein.  London,  1659,  neat 
the  little  north  door  of  St.  Paul's. 

§  Lettres  Spirituelles.      Lett.  xiv. 

12 


184  PATIENCE. 

puchin,  or  a  Jesuit,  but  that  for  himself  he  does  not  aim 
so  high." 

But  in  truth  these  great  Jesuit  ascetics  were  not  in 
any  way  departing  from  the  spiritual  tradition  of  the 
more  ancient  doctors.  They  have  not  got  beyond  the 
grand  light  of  the  Church,  St.  Thomas,  the  angel  of  th-a 
schools ;  and  he  professes  to  give  us  the  tradition  of  Am- 
brose, Chrysostom,  and  the  older  fathers.  He  who  de- 
fended the  religious  state  and  its  perfection  in  his  won- 
derful tract  on  Perfection  says,  "  If  then  a  religious  is 
unordained,  as  is  the  case  with  lay  brothers,  it  is  manifest 
that  the  pre-eminence  of  order  excels  as  to  dignity.  For 
by  holy  orders  a  man  is  deputed  to  the  most  dignified 
ministries,  to  serve  Christ  in  the  Sacrament  of  the  altar. 
For  this  a  greater  interior  sanctity  is  required  than  even 
the  religious  state  demands  ;  for  as  Dionysius  says,*  the 
monastic  order  ought  to  follow  the  sacerdotal  orders,  and 
after  their  imitation  ascend  to  divine  things.  Hence, 
other  things  being  equal,  a  cleric  in  holy  orders,  when  he 
does  anything  contrary  to  sanctity,  sins  more  gravely 
than  a  religious  who  is  not  in  holy  orders,  although  the 
lay  religious  is  bound  to  regular  observances,  and  the 
clerk  is  not."f 

I  have  dwelt  upon  this,  because  unless  we  have  our 
first  principles  clear  on  the  subject  of  perfection  in  and 
out  of  the  religious  state,  nearly  everything  that  is  said 

*  In  cap  vi.  Bccles.  Hierarch. 

f  Ad  quod  (the  priesthood,  diaconate  and  subdiaconate)  requiritut 
major  sanctitas  interior  quam  requirat  etiam  religionis  statue.  Quia, 
eicut  Dionysius  dicit,  Monasticns  ordo  debet  sequi  sacerdotales  ordines, 
et  ad  eorum  imitationem  ad  divina  ascendere.  (Secunda  Secundse. 
Quaest.  clxxxiv.  Art.  viii.,  in  which  he  undertakes  to  show  that  a 
religiuuB  is  more  perfect  than  an  archdeacon.) 


PATIENCE.  135 

is  capable  of  being  taken  the  wrong  way  j  and  it  has  much 
to  do  with  the  subject  of  patience.  For  what  I  want  to 
say  is  that  while  obedience,  community  life,  exact  ob- 
servance of  primitive  rule,  fidelity  to  the  original  spirit 
of  the  canonized  founder,  and  above  all  the  practice  of 
evangelical  poverty,  put  the  perfection  of  religious  far 
above  the  reach  of  seculars  in  kind,  there  can  be  no 
question  or  comparison  between  them  at  all  as  to  degree. 
A  person  may  have  a  higher  degree  of  a  lower  hind  of 
perfection  than  another.  Theologians  say  that  probably 
some  saints  on  earth  have  loved  God  more  than  some 
angels  in  heaven.  This  illustrates  my  meaning ;  for  no 
one  will  say  that  an  angel  in  heaven  is  not  higher  in  kind 
than  a  saint  upon  earth.  Thus  a  man  in  the  world  may 
attain  a  higher  degree  of  perfection  in  his  kind  than  a 
certain  religious  may  have  attained  in  the  cloister  in  his 
kind )  and  so  have  corresponded  more  faithfully  to  grace, 
and  be  more  acceptable  to  God.  To  deny  this  seems  to 
be  a  simple  confusion  of  principles.  Men  who  dispute 
about  it  must  be  using  words  in  two  different  senses.  The 
thing  itself  is  surely  self-evident.  Is  there  any  one  who 
would  rather  be  a  very  ordinary  religious  than  a  very  holy 
secular  ?  * 

*  St.  Thomas  may  be  said  to  have  exhausted  the  subject  of  the 
comparative  states  of  perfection  in  the  last  seven  questions  of  the 
Secunda  Secundae.  Spiritual  books  are  mostly  written  by  religious, 
and  for  the  use  of  religious.  Hence  it  is  that  St.  Thomas's  doctrine 
on  the  perfection  of  the  Secular  Clergy  is  so  often,  not  misrepre- 
sented, but  simply  pretermitted ;  although  the  non-recognition  of  it, 
injurious  as  it  is  to  the  best  interests  of  the  clergy,  is  almost  equally 
so  to  the  religious  as  lowering  their  standard  of  monaetic  perfection. 
A  religious  who  is  a  priest  has  an  obligation  to  a  double  perfection  ; 
yet  loosely- written  books  sometimes  refer  what  belongs  to  his  sacer- 
dotal perfection  to  the  obligations  of  his  monastic  state.     The  prac* 


136  PATIENCE. 

Furthermore,  what  obedience  is  to  religious  (not  all 
that  it  is,  but  the  functions  it  performs),  that  patience  is 
to  seculars.  Independently  of  its  directly  supernatural 
virtue,  obedience  sanctifies  the  religious  for  four  reasons 
principally :  because  it  comes  from  without,  because  the 
religious  has  no  control  over  its  requirements,  because  he 
must  be  ready  at  all  moments,  and  because  it  involves  the 
giving  up  of  his  own  will  and  way.  Now  all  these  four 
offices  patience  discharges  in  its  measure  to  the  secular. 
The  circumstances  which  exact  its  exercise  come  upon  us 
from  without;  we  have  no  control  over  them;  they  may 
come  upon  us  at  all  moments ;  and  they  always  involve 
the  sacrifice  or  the  mortification  of  our  own  will  and  way. 
I  do  not  say  that  patience  equals  religious  obedience;  but 
that  it  is  itself  the  obedience  of  seculars.  It  is  necessary 
to  their  perfection.  What  obedience  is  to  the  higher  and 
different  perfection  of  monks  and  nuns,  that  patience  is  to 
the  indubitably  lower,  yet  genuine  perfection  of  men  in 
the  world. 

A  few  words  must  be  said  of  all  the  four  exercises  of 
patience,  patience  with  others,  patience  with  self,  patience 
with  our  director,  and  patience  with  God. 

We  may  say  that,  partly  from  our  own  badness  and 
partly  from  theirs,  all  mankind,  far  and  near,  kindred  and 
strangers,  are  a  trial  to  our  patience  in  some  way  or  other. 
If  those  who  are  above  us  exercise  our  patience,  our  na- 
tural inclination  is  immediately  to  revolt,  and  we  are  quite 
as  much  kept  in  subordination  by  human  respect,  by  fear 
and  the  consequence  to  our  own  interests,  as  by  the  real 

tice  of  evangelical  poverty  is  a  height  unapproachable  by  seculars, 
t,o   say    coining   of    the   sanctification   of  vowed   obedience.     The 
superiority  of  the  religious  state  over  the  secular  is  immeasurable 
but,  I  repeat,  the  difference  is  one  of  kind,  not  of  degree. 


PATIENCE.  137 

grace  of  patience.  Even  when  we  obey  ws  take  tin  bloom 
off  our  obedience  by  a  sulky  manner,  or  by  a  sullen  word 
or  a  downcast  look,  or  a  complaint  to  others,  or  a  general 
reproachful  sadness  of  demeanour  by  which  we  manage  t<? 
make  superiors  unhappy  and  disquieted,  and  to  show  them 
what  an  exercise  of  authority  they  are  putting  forward 
when  they  constrain  us  to  what  we  do  not  like.  The 
sanctifying  power  of  half  our  life  is  lost  by  this  single 
ungracefulness.  If  the  trial  of  our  patience  comes  from 
those  below  us,  we  sometimes  proudly  exhibit  our  sense 
of  their  inferiority.  We  crush  them  by  a  reprimand,  or 
wither  them  by  a  look,  or  sting  them  with  coldness.  If 
the  trial  comes  from  our  equals,  how  often  do  we  offend 
by  rudeness,  abruptness,  unkindliness,  and  a  want  of  mu- 
tual respect !  When  we  are  engaged  with  others  in  any 
kind  of  work,  or  are  constantly  in  society  with  others,  our 
patience  is  often  exercised.  We  encounter  stupid,  pas- 
sionate or  importunate  people ;  and  we  do  not  look  at 
each  of  these  meetings  as  a  gift  from  God,  who  is  going 
to  watch  how  we  behave  and  visit  us  accordingly.  Almost 
every  circumstance  in  life  has  a  manner,  time,  place  and 
degree,  by  which  it  tries  our  patience ;  and  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say,  especially  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  devout 
fife,  that  this  exercise  does  more  for  us  than  fast  or  disci- 
pline j  and  that  when  we  can  go  through  with  it  for  love 
of  the  sweetness  of  Jesus,  we  are  not  far  from  interior 
holiness. 

The  blessings  which  result  from  this  practice  in  the 
interior  life  are  manifold.  The  English  spirit  of  always 
standing  up  for  our  rights  is  fatal  to  perfection.  It  is 
the  opposite  of  that  charity  of  which  the  apostle  says, 
that  it  seeks  not  its  own.  Now  this  spirit  is  admirably 
12* 


138  PATIENCE. 

mortified  by  the  exercise  of  patience.  It  involves  also  a 
continual  practice  of  the  presence  of  God;  for  we  may 
be  come  upon  at  any  moment  for  an  almost  heroic  dis- 
play of  good  temper.  And  it  is  a  short  road  to  unself- 
ishness; for  nothing  is  left  to  self.  All  that  seems  to 
belong  most  intimately  to  self,  to  be  self's  private  pro- 
perty, such  as  time,  home,  and  rest,  are  invaded  by  these 
continual  trials  of  patience.  The  family  is  full  of  such 
opportunities,  and  the  sanctity  of  marriage  abounds  with 
them.  It  may  be  added,  for  it  is  no  slight  thing,  that 
there  is  not  a  spiritual  exercise  less  open  to  delusion  than 
is  this,  though  the  subtle,  disheartening  Gruillore  fills 
three  whole  chapters  with  them. 

In  truth  there  are  certain  admonitions  which  are  neces- 
sary concerning  this  exercise  of  patience  with  others.  It 
is  a  practice  which  requires  a  long  apprenticeship,  so  that 
it  is  in  itself  an  exercise  of  patience.  To  be  impatient 
because  they  are  not  patient  is  no  uncommon  exhibition 
in  spiritual  persons.  Progress  in  the  acquirement  of 
this  virtue  is  not  easily  perceived,  as  in  the  substantial 
self-denial  there  is  often  much  inward  trouble  and  heat 
Hence  we  must  take  comfort  and  go  on  making  efforts 
It  is  a  matter  in  which  every  effort  is  in  reality  an  ad- 
vance. There  are  also  particular  times  when  we  must  be 
very  cautious  not  to  be  irritable  and  impatient.  After 
long  prayer,  great  sweetness  in  meditation,  or  an  unusu 
ally  fervent  communion,  or,  indeed,  any  spiritual  effort, 
we  are  extremely  liable  to  lose  our  temper,  partly  through 
a  law  of  our  physical  constitution,  and  partly  because 
the  devil  wants  to  repair  the  losses  we  have  just  made 
him  suffer.  We  must  be  content,  therefore,  at  first  with 
inaterial  patience,  irritable  patience.     We  must  not  be 


PATIENCE.  139 

vexed  or  cast  dowi.  about  it.  Something  better  will 
come  of  it  presently.  It  is  well  to  accuse  ourselves  of 
the  slightest  fault  against  patience  at  confession,  to  make 
frequent  acts  of  contrition  about  it  during  the  day,  and 
to  cast  many  a  loving  look  at  our  Crucifix,  that  touching 
emblem  of  the  patience  of  God.  Strange  to  say,  not- 
withstanding God  is  impassible,  there  is  something  pe- 
culiarly Godlike  in  the  virtue  of  patience.  If  it  is  true 
of  any  one  grace,  beside  charity,  it  is  true  of  patience, 
that  it  is  the  beauty  of  holiness. 

But  if  it  is  a  hard  thing  to  be  patient  with  others,  how 
much  harder  is  it  to  be  patient  with  ourselves  !  Indeed, 
so  much  is  this  branch  of  the  virtue  neglected  that  we 
seem  almost  to  think  its  opposite  a  merit,  as  if  impatience 
with  self  were  a  heroism  or  a  meritorious  mortification. 
There  is  a  vast  difference  between  hatred  of  self  and  im- 
patience with  self.  The  more  of  the  first  we  have  the 
better,  and  the  less  of  the  last.  Once  let  us  surmount 
the  difficulty  of  being  patient  with  ourselves  and  the  road 
to  perfection  lies  clear  and  unobstructed  before  us. 

But  what  do  we  mean  by  impatience  with  self?  Fret- 
ting under  temptations,  and  mistaking  their  real  nature, 
and  their  real  value  also.  —  In  actual  sin  being  more 
vexed  at  the  lowering  of  our  own  self-esteem  than  being 
grieved  at  God's  dishonour.  —  In  being  surprised  and 
irritated  at  our  own  want  of  self-control  because  of  our 
subjection  to  unworthy  habits. — Being  depressed  because 
we  experience  lively  movements  of  anger  or  give  way  to 
fits  of  sadness,  even  where,  as  is  possible,  there  is  no  sin, 
either  in  the  one  or  the  other. — Being  annoyed  with  our 
own  want  of  sensible  devotion,  as  if  it  was  at  all  in  oui 
Dwn  power,  and  as  if  patience  in  dryness  was  not  ;ust  the 


140  PATIENCE. 

very  way  to  earn  sweetness  and  spiritual  consolation. — 
Being  disquieted  because  we  do  not  find  the  remedies  we 
have  applied  to  our  faults  act  as  we  expected,  forgetting 
that  they  need  time,  and  that  we  often  put  secret  obsta- 
cles in  the  way.  To  these  symptoms  we  may  add  a  sort 
of  querulousness  about  the  want  of  spiritual  progress,  as 
if  we  were  to  be  saints  in  a  month. 

All  these  dangerous  symptoms  of  impatience  with  self 
come  from  one  or  other  of  four  causes,  and  it  is  there  we 
must  seek  them,  and  kill  them  in  the  nest,  before  they 
are  able  to  fly.  Verily  they  are  birds  of  prey  to  our  spi- 
ritual life.  The  first  cause  is  self-love,  which  is  unable 
to  brook  the  disappointment  of  not  seeing  ourselves  in 
times  of  trial  come  out  beautiful,  erect  and  admirable. 
The  second  is  want  of  humility,  which  causes  us  not  to 
appreciate  our  own  real  meanness,  or  to  comprehend  the 
.incapacitating  effects  of  our  past  sins.  The  third  is  the 
absence  of  a  true  estimate  of  the  huge  difficulties  of  the 
spiritual  life,  and  therefore  of  the  necessity  of  an  utter 
divorce  with  the  world  and  a  formal  abjuration  of  its 
maxims,  before  we  can  really  give  ourselves  to  God.  The 
fourth  is  an  obstinate  disinclination  to  walk  by  faith. 
We  fret  under  it.  We  want,  nature  wants,  self-love 
wants,  everything  in  short,  except  faith  itself,  wants, — 
to  see,  to  know,  to  be  sure,  to  reason,  to  ascertain  that 
success  is  inevitable. 

To  be  patient  with  self  is  au.  almost  incalculable 
blessing,  and  the  shortest  road  to  improvement,  as  well 
as  the  quickest  means  by  which  an  interior  spirit  can  be 
formed  within  us,  short  of  that  immediate  touch  of  God 
which  makes  some  souls  interior  all  at  once.  It  breeds 
considerateness  and  softness  of  manner  towards  others 


PATIENCE.  141 

It  disinclines  us  to  censoriousness,  because  of  the  abiding 
sense  of  our  own  imperfections.  It  quickens  our  percep- 
tion of  utterest  dependence  on  God  and  grace,  and  pro- 
duces at  the  same  time  evenness  of  temper  and  equality 
of  spirits,  because  it  is  at  once  an  effort,  and  yet  a  quiet 
sustained  effort.  It  is  a  constant  source  of  acts  of  the 
mrv't  genuine  humility.  In  a  word,  by  it  we  act  upon 
self  from  without,  as  if  we  were  not  self,  but  self's 
master,  or  self's  guardian  angel.  And  when  this  is  done 
in  the  exterior  life  as  well  as  the  interior,  what  remains 
in  order  to  perfection  ? 

There  are  various  means  by  which  we  may  cultivate 
this  patience  with  ourselves.  Frequent  meditation  on 
our  own  nothingness  is  a  great  help  to  it;  and  an  especial 
dwelling  upon  any  meanness  and  vileness  and  deceit  of  ")ur 
past  lives,  the  reconsideration  of  which  can  be  attei  ded 
with  no  danger  because  of  the  intrinsic  disgust  and  cut- 
ting shame  which  the  details  of  such  meanness  a>»<ike 
within  us.  When  we  hear  of  some  great  crime,  we  may 
consider  that  we  might  have  done  it  ourselves,  or  periaps 
worse,  were  it  not  for  grace.  We  must  be  careful  als*  •  at 
confession,  and  in  preparing  for  it,  not  to  mistake  *elf- 
vexation  for  real  contrition  :  and  then  we  may  persevere 
in  asking  for  patience  in  a  special  way  after  communion. 
We  must  try,  it  is  very  hard,  but  time  wins  its  way 
through  hard  things,  to  rejoice  in  all  encounters  which 
show  us  our  need  of  grace,  and  the  possibility  of  dreadful 
sins  which  we  always  carry  about  with  us.  Neither  must 
we  be  in  a  hurry  to  forget  past  sin,  and  to  force  our  way 
into  the  sunshine.  If  God  gives  us  quite  a  depressing 
sense  of  sin,  let  us  cherish  it  and  stagger  on  beneath  the 
burden.     Blessed  is  any  weight,  however  overwhelming, 


142  PATIENCE. 

which  God  has  been  so  good  as  fasten  with  His  own  hand 
upon  our  shoulders.  In  a  word,  patience  with  self  is 
almost  a  condition  of  spiritual  progress ;  and  St.  Cathe- 
rine of  Genoa  is  its  patron  saint. 

From  patience  with  self  we  must  pass  to  patience  with 
our  director.  Patience  with  superiors  is  of  the  essence 
of  religious  obedience ;  and  a  director  is  something  like 
a  superior  without  the  overawing  insignia  of  authority; 
but  our  obedience  to  him  is  and  ought  to  be  limited,  and 
we  may  transfer  it  elsewhere  any  day  without  sin,  if  not 
without  indiscretion. 

Now  we  have  first  of  all  to  subject  our  understanding 
to  our  director,  and  this  in  many  ways  and  under  many 
diiferent  circumstances.  He  often  differs  from  us  in  our 
own  view  of  ourselves,  and  puts  a  low  price  upon  what  we 
think  rare  and  precious.  He  keeps  us  back  when  we  are 
for  bounding  forward,  and  he  spurs  us  on  when  we  wish 
to  sit  down  and  rest,  and  admire  the  view  which  we  have 
now  climbed  high  enough  to  see.  He  persists  that  some- 
thing we  make  much  of  is  a  delusion,  and  he  will  not 
agree  with  us  as  to  what  is  really  our  ruling  passion.  He 
changes  our  line,  and  we  think  he  is  making  a  serious 
mistake  with  us,  and  while  we  are  detailing  to  him  some 
supposed  inspiration,  he  looks  cold  and  distracted,  and  as 
if  he  wished  we  would  go  away.  There  is  surely  ample 
room  for  the  understanding  to  practise  patience  here. 

The  subjection  of  our  will  is  not  less  trying.  He 
thwarts  our  desires  and  gives  us  no  reason  but  his  own 
will,  so  that  there  are  many  things  we  repent  we  ever 
asked  him.  He  refuses  us  austerities  and  extra-commu- 
nions, neither  will  he  confer  with  us  as  often  as  we  wish, 
or  for  as  long  time  as  our  own  self-love  deems  reasonable 


PATIENCE.  148 

for  persons  of  such  importance  to  the  Church  as  we  are.  • 
He  will  not  let  us  read  the  books  we  like  to  read,  and  he 
is  provokingly  slow  in  making  up  his  mind  on  questions 
we  have  laid  before  him.  When  self-will  has  patiently 
gone  through  this,  will  it  be  far  from  being  tamed  into 
Christian  docility  ? 

We  must  be  patient  also  with  him  when  he  is  evi- 
dently mortifying  us.  This  is  not  so  hard,  because  it  is 
more  direct.  He  mortifies  us  by  refusing  us  consolations, 
by  giving  us  absolution  without  a  word,  when  we  have 
expected  a  conference,  and  are  full  of  words  which  we 
want  to  pour  out,  and  yet  to  let  it  seem  as  if  he  drew 
them  out.  He  mortifies  us  by  sending  us  to  communion 
without  absolution,  and  otherwise  ridiculing  our  scruples, 
by  speaking  harshly  to  us  with  manifest  exaggeration,  and 
by  keeping  us  under  monotonous  mortifications  which 
have  long  ceased  to  be  mortifications,  till  we  are  almost 
wearied  out,  in  other  words,  till  they  have  become  morti- 
fications again,  and  of  a  better  and  more  killing  kind. 

But  it  is  a  harder  task  to  be  patient  with  him  when  we 
are  in  doubt,  half  suspecting  he  is  mortifying  us,  and  yet 
not  being  quite  sure  whether  it  is  not  laziness  or  indiffer- 
ence. This  takes  place  when  he  seems,  almost  studiously, 
to  take  no  interest  in  us,  and  treats  us  as  an  annoyance 
to  him,  or  when  he  contradicts,  interrupts,  or  appears 
purposely  to  misunderstand  us.  At  other  times  he  says 
he  quite  forgets  our  case,  and  bids  us  repeat  it,  and  looks 
as  if  he  were  making  no  effort  to  listen  even  then. 
Another  while  he  contradicts  himself,  counter-orders 
things,  and  gives  opposite  advice  different  weeks.  Then 
he  hints  he  would  have  us  leave  him,  and  when  we  refuse, 
pubmits  to  keep  us  with  a  languid  and  inattentive  air. 


144  PATIENCE. 

But  he  may  try  our  patience  harder  still.  He  may  be 
and  often  is,  plainly  in  fault.  Impatience,  discourtesy, 
and  irritability,  are  always  faults,  whatever  amount  of 
extenuation  may  be  pleaded  in  their  behalf.  He  may  be 
guilty  of  occasional  acts  of  substantial  unkindness,  and  at 
times  he  may  be  destitute  of  the  grace  to  bear  with  our 
weaknesses  and  to  sympathize  with  our  sorrows.  Oppor- 
tunities may  offer  when  it  becomes  a  duty  on  his  part  to 
make  exertions  and  to  take  trouble  for  us,  and  he  refuses 
to  do  so.  Or  he  may  visit  us  hastily  with  the  fatal  pun- 
ishment of  leaving  us  to  direct  ourselves,  because  we  have 
been  surprised  into  taking  ourselves  in  hand,  when  we 
thought  him  listless  and  forgetful,  and  all  the  while  he 
was  praying  and  saying  mass  for  us.  In  all  this  he  is 
clearly  wrong,  and  yet  we  must  have  patience  with  him. 
And  if  direction  were  altogether  a  supernatural  thing, 
patience  would  be  easier,  because  it  would  be  dignified. 
But  with  the  great  bulk  both  of  penitents  and  directors, 
direction  is,  and  ought  to  be,  and  ought  never  to  pretend 
not  to  be,  almost  as  much  natural  as  supernatural. 

We  have  still  to  speak  of  patience  with  God.  The 
very  word  sounds  strange.  Let  it  not  breed  familiar  or 
irreverent  thoughts.  It  is  a  very  serious  question,  and 
must  be  approached  with  the  profoundest  respect,  remem- 
bering of  what  an  infinite  majesty  and  unfathomable  con- 
descension it  is  of  which  with  all  abasement  we  are  ven- 
turing to  speak.  Again  and  again  I  have  said,  it  is  an 
awful  thing  to  have  dealings  with  Almighty  God.  His 
favours  are  our  fears.  And  yet  let  us  think  of  this  with 
the  intensest  filial  and  confiding  love.  Oh  that  we  could 
always  speak  reverently  of  Him  whom  we  do  far  more 
than  either  fear  or  love,  whom  we  worship  as  our  God ! 


PATIENCE.  146 

God  condescends  to  try  our  patience,  who  are  dutst  and 
ashes,  in  various  ways;  and  some  of  them  are  peculiar 
or  belong  chiefly,  to  the  spiritual  life.  His  ordinary 
providence,  therefore,  the  ways  of  His  justice,  and  the 
darkness  of  His  decrees,  do  not  now  concern  us :  His 
majesty  is  adorable,  His  glory  inscrutable  in  them  all. 
In  the  spiritual  life  He  vouchsafes  to  try  our  patience 
first  of  all  by  His  slowness.  Slowness  is  the  grand 
characteristic  of  the  Creator  as  seen  by  the  side  of  His 
creatures.  Were  it  not  for  His  slowless,  where  should 
we  have  been  long  since  ?  We  forget  this,  when  His 
slowness  makes  us  impatient.  He  is  slow ;  we  are  swift 
and  precipitate.  It  is  because  we  are  but  for  a  time,  and 
He  has  been  from  eternity.  Thus  grace  for  the  most 
part  acts  slowly,  and  mortification  is  as  long  as  levelling 
a  mountain,  and  prayer  as  the  growth  of  an  old  oak.  He 
works  by  little  and  by  little,  and  sweetly  and  strongly  He 
compasses  His  ends,  but  with  a  slowness  which  tries  our 
faith,  because  it  is  so  great  a  mystery.  We  must  fasten 
upon  this  attribute  of  God  in  our  growth  in  holiness.  It 
must  be  at  once  our  worship  and  our  exemplar.  There 
is  something  greatly  overawing  in  the  extreme  slowness 
of  God.  Let  it  overshadow  our  souls,  but  let  it  not 
disquiet  them. 

He  tries  us  also  by  His  hiddenness  and  by  the  impe- 
netrable obscurity  in  which  He  shrouds  almost  all  His 
supernatural  processes,  both  in  the  sacraments  and  out  of 
them.  As  the  Bible  says,  He  is  a  God  who  conceals 
Himself.  If  we  could  see  Him,  so  we  say,  0  then  cheer- 
fully would  we  follow  Him  !  0  were  we  but  sure  it  was 
He !  But  we  cannot  see  Him.  Often  He  could  not  show 
Himself  to  us,  if  He  would.  That  is,  His  mercy  could 
13  K 


146  PATIENCE. 

not,  for  the  sight  would  slay  us.  Darknesu  is  good  for  us 
when  light  would  blind  us.  But  look  over  the  exercises, 
the  trials,  the  temptations,  and  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
spiritual  life,  and  what  a  gain  it  seems  as  if  it  would  be 
to  us,  could  we  only  see  Him  !  It  is  not  so.  It  is  best 
as  it  is.  The  enigma  is  our  life.  We  must  be  patient 
with  it.  Sometimes  He  condescends  to  look  mutable  and 
fickle.  He  lets  the  moon  amid  the  driving  clouds  of  night 
be  His  emblem.  He  entices  us  into  a  road,  and  then 
leaves  us  just  where  it  branches  into  two.  He  shows  His 
face  and  then  He  hides  it.  We  see  it  for  a  moment,  and 
it  is  gone  before  we  have  caught  the  expression  of  it.  Or 
the  light  so  pleased  us,  we  did  not  look  at  the  dark  objects 
it  was  meant  to  enlighten.  Why  does  He  interweave  His 
bright  and  dark  with  us  so  perpetually?  Sometimes  He 
puzzles  us  as  to  His  will.  He  lets  half  words  fall  into 
our  hearts.  He  sends  us  what  look  like  leadings,  and  are 
not  so.  He  feigns,  as  our  Lord  did  when  He  made  as  if 
He  would  pass  the  boat  that  stormy  night  on  the  water. 
He  lets  us  think  that  He  has  contradicted  Himself,  He 
who  is  eternal  truth,  unchangeable  simplicity.  He  looks 
as  though  He  were  entrapping  us,  getting  us  to  commit 
ourselves  to  Him,  and  then  reproaching  us,  and  going 
away  as  if  we  had  offended  Him,  or  changing  his  mien 
and  throwing  us  into  prison  and  making  slaves  of  us,  as 
if  in  contempt  of  our  generosity,  as  if  our  best  were  an 
insult  to  Him,  as  it  would  be  but  for  the  infiniteness  of 
His  amazing  compassion.  One  while  He  is  the  most  in- 
dulgent of  fathers,  another  while  the  least  forbearing  of 
masters  :  now  the  most  patieut  of  teachers,  and  again  the 
sharpest  of  critics  :  here  the  most  gracious  of  sovereigns, 
there  the  most  exacting  of  despots :  now  almost  a  plain 


PATIENCE.  147 

t;ff  to  our  human  hearts,  and  again  the  most  vindictive 
of  persecutors.  Look  as  Thou  wilt,  most  gracious  Lord ! 
nothing  of  Thee  will  we  believe  but  that  Thou  art  an  in- 
finitely good  God,  in  Thy  wrath  remembering  mercy,  and 
as  unchangeably  a  Father  as  Thou  art  eternally  a  God ! 

His  chastisements  also  try  our  patience.  Not  only  be- 
cause they  are  never  really  light;  for  He  never  punishes 
in  vain ;  but  because  they  are  unexpected,  and  seem  in- 
consistent with  what  we  have  heard,  and  look  dispropor- 
tionate to  such  little  failings.  For  if  He  caressed  us  when 
we  greatly  sinned,  and  forgave  us  even  when  we  longed 
to  be  chastised,  why  for  a  trifling  infidelity  or  an  almost 
natural  defect  does  the  slow,  heavy,  regular  lash  endure 
so  long  ?  Does  He  forget  we  are  creatures  made  of  clay, 
and  that  if  He  does  not  mind,  He  will  break  us  ?  Any 
chastisement  which  seems  out  of  keeping  with  His  usual 
dispensations  tries  our  patience  and  is  specially  hard  to 
bear.  In  the  matter  of  answers  to  prayer  we  are  equally 
bewildered.  If  He  does  not  answer,  faith  faints.  If  He 
does,  the  answer  is  like  Himself,  it  is  slow  and  obscure 
and  a  riddle.  Sometimes  it  is  as  if  He  answered  in  anger 
and  took  us  at  our  word  in  a  strange  way  for  a  Father. 
At  last  He  abandons  us.  At  all  events  there  would  be  no 
bewilderment  here,  were  we  not  told  that  this  is  precisely 
the  hour  of  His  especial  and  sustaining  grace.  Strange ! 
for  it  is  like  a  mountain  falling  on  our  hearts.  It  wrung 
a  cry  even  from  the  silence-loving  Heart  of  our  ever- 
blessed  Saviour  on  the  Cross. 

Shall  I  say  then,  be  patient  with  God  ?  Better  say, 
Let  us  worship  as  heretofore ;  for  is  He  not  still  God  ? 

There  are  various  ways  in  which  we  offend  against 
this  sublime  exercise  of  patience.     The  first  is  by  petu- 


148  PATIENCE. 

lance  in  prayer,  bold  words  of  complaint,  as  if  God  had 
injured  us,  or  as  if  He  liked  them,  and  that  it  was  for 
every  one  to  dare  to  be  with  Him  as  Job  was  of  old,  and 
to  pour  out  his  heart  in  those  bitter  burning  words, 
whereby  God  mysteriously  acknowledged  that  he  had 
justified  himself.  Or  our  impatience  may  show  itself  in 
an  indiscreet  and  inordinate  pursuit  of  virtue,  a  greedi- 
ness for  graces,  and  a  wounded  vanity  from  venial  imper- 
fections. It  makes  us  capricious  and  fickle.  We  give 
up  prayer,  because  the  answer  lingers.  We  weary  of 
sacraments  because  of  their  monotony.  We  shift  our 
spiritual  exercises,  because  they  have  not  wrought  mira- 
cles. We  abandon  medicines  because  health  has  not  fol- 
lowed instantaneously.  All  infidelity  is  impatience  with 
God.  Thus  we  mar  our  mortifications  by  it.  We  begin 
them  on  impulse ;  we  practise  them  without  sobriety ;  and 
we  leave  them  off  because  we  are  grown  tepid  and  do  not 
like  the  pain.  So  in  the  same  manner  a  good  work  sug- 
gests itself:  we  cast  up  to  heaven  one  ejaculation,  far 
more  full  of  self-will  than  of  pure  zeal;  and  we  begin 
the  work  forthwith  without  prayer  or  counsel  or  delibera- 
tion. What  wonder  we  leave  it  half  done  ?  Is  not  the 
land  round  about  us  all  full  of  these  follies  of  impulse, 
impatience  and  conceit,  which  we  ourselves  have  set  up 
amid  the  mute  wonder  of  pitying  angels  ?  We  give  our- 
selves vocations,  and  then  charge  them  again.  We  con- 
fer missions  on  ourselves,  tyrannize  over  ourselves  by 
multiplying  our  responsibilities,  and  send  ourselves  on 
embassies  to  the  very  end  of  the  earth.  We  can  hardly 
relieve  sorrow  or  allay  distress,  but  there  is  some  impa- 
tience in  it.  We  pray  God  daily  not  to  lead  us  into  temp 
taticn,  yet  we  are  daily  placing  ourselves  in  dangerous  oc* 


PATIENCE.  149 

oasions  which  we  have  reached  almost  out  of  breath,  leav- 
ing Him  far  behind,  who  will  not  be  hasten  3d  on  His  way. 
But  what  are  the  remedies  for  this  ?  "We  must  study 
God.  We  must  drink  of  the  spirit  of  His  ways.  We 
must  love  God,  ardently,  intensely,  to  the  death.  But 
we  must  fear  Him  also,  with  a  fear  unutterable,  abasing, 
perpetual.  Fear  must  beat  in  our  blood,  and  quiver  in 
our  limbs,  and  many  a  time  tongue-tie  us  and  throw  us 
down.  0  how  we  shall  love  God,  when  we  fear  Him 
thus !  Magnificent  fear !  thou  art  a  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost !  We  must  wait  for  God,  long,  meekly,  in  the 
wind  and  wet,  in  the  thunder  and  the  lightning,  in  the 
cold  and  the  dark.  "Wait,  and  He  will  come.  He  never 
comes  to  those  who  do  not  wait.  He  does  not  go  their 
road.  When  He  comes,  go  with  Him,  but  go  slowly, 
fall  a  little  behind;  when  He  quickens  His  pace,  be  sure 
of  it,  before  you  quicken  yours.  But  when  He  slackens, 
slacken  at  once.  And  do  not  be  slow  only,  but  silent, 
vary  silent,  for  He  is  God. 


13* 


160  HUMAN   RESPECT. 


CHAPTER  X. 

HUMAN    RESPECT. 

To  give  ourselves  up  to  the  spiritual  life  is  to  put  our* 
selves  out  of  harmony  with  the  world  around  us.  We 
make  a  discord  even  with  much  that  is  amiable  and  affec- 
tionate, and  with  which,  as  natural  virtue,  we  cannot  be 
altogether  without  sympathy.  We  live  in  a  different 
world,  have  different  interests  and  speak  a  different  lan- 
guage, and  the  two  worlds  will  not  mingle.  Grace  holds 
us  in  one  world,  nature  draws  us  down  again  into  the 
other.  This  is  the  secret  of  the  immense  power  which 
human  respect  has  over  us;  and  of  the  three  dispositions 
which  compose  the  normal  state  of  the  spiritual  life, 
fatigue  is  the  one  which  lays  us  most  open  to  its  attacks. 
We  are  weary  of  interior  things  and  weakened  by  long 
combat,  and  a  vigorous  charge  from  an  enemy  who  gets 
close  to  us  under  friendly  colours  is  more  than  for  the 
most  part  we  can  withstand.  The  good  spirit,  then,  which 
should  be  the  faithful  satellite  of  our  fatigue,  is  the  pre- 
sence of  God,  or  singleness  of  purpose,  or  simp-j^ty,  but 
which  I  prefer  to  designate  merely  the  absence  of  human 
respect,  because  no  word  seems  so  exactly  to  describe  this 
spirit  as  the  negative  appellation  in  question. 

There  is  much  to  be  said  of  human  respect.  It  is  a 
fault  most  keenly  felt  by  spiritual  persons,  and  compara- 
tively little  felt  by  others.  It  is  more  like  an  atmosphere 
than   anything    else,   and   can    hardly   be   caught  and 


HUMAN   RESPECT.  151 

punished  in  distinct  acts.  Yet  it  is  a  thing  of  which 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  We  have  an  infallible  conscious- 
ness of  it.  It  gives  undeniable  evidences  of  its  own  ex- 
istence. It  destroys  all  liberty,  and  becomes  the  positive 
tyrant  of  a  man's  life.  Yet  if  we  look  well  into  it, 
nothing  can  be  more  stupid  than  our  submission  to  it. 
For  we  set  little  or  no  value  on  the  separate  opinions  of 
individuals;  and  when  the  judgment  is  in  our  favour,  it 
can  do  us  no  good,  neither,  unless  true,  can  it  afford  us 
any  rational  pleasure.  Indeed,  its  power  is  altogether  in 
the  prospect,  and  not  in  the  present  possession.  Yet  it 
is  a  most  universal,  and  must  be  dealt  with  as  one  of  the 
most  inconvenient  facts  of  the  spiritual  life.  Look  at  a 
person  who  is  completely  under  its  domination.  Watch 
him  in  society  and  public  life,  or  in  the  bosom  of 
his  family,  or  in  the  intimacies  of  friendship,  or  at  con- 
fession and  in  conference  with  his  director,  or  even  with 
God  in  prayer,  or  in  utter  solitude*  It  is  as  if  the  omni- 
presence of  God  was  spunged  out  all  round  him,  and  that 
some  other  powerful  eye  was  fixed  upon  him,  ruling  him 
with  a  power  like  that  of  the  solar  light,  and  causing  in 
him  at  all  times  an  almost  preternatural  uneasiness. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  the  evils  of  this  miserable 
world-presence,  this  spirit  which  gathers  all  mankind  up 
into  an  eye,  and  throws  its  portentous  fascination  upon 
our  souls.  It  causes  men  to  be  false  and  insincere  in 
their  mutual  relations,  and  to  act  inconsiderately  with 
others.  It  destroys  all  generous  enthusiasm  either  for 
charity  or  penance.  It  puts  a  man  under  the  despotism 
of  ridicule,  which  becomes  a  kind  of  false  god  to  him. 
It  is  the  contradictory  of  perfection,  and  while  it  is  in 
force,  renders  it  impossible ;  for  it  is  always  drawing  ua 


152  HUMAN   RESPECT. 

off  from  God  to  creatures.  A  brood  of  sins  of  omission 
follow  it  wherever  it  goes,  sprung  from  shame  and  the 
fear  of  ridicule,  and  another  brood  of  sins  of  commission, 
from  the  desire  to  please.  In  process  of  time,  and  the 
process  is  not  slow,  it  establishes  itself  as  an  habitual 
distraction  in  prayer  and  meditation ;  and  as  to  examina- 
tion of  conscience,  it  almost  seems  to  supply  food  to  the 
voracity  of  human  respect. 

It  is  as  miserable  as  it  is  evil.  The  bondage  of  Car 
thusian  austerity  would  be  easier  to  bear.  No  slavery  is 
more  degraded  and  unhappy,.  What  a  misery  to  be 
ashamed  of  our  duties  and  our  principles !  What  a  misery 
that  every  action  should  have  a  flaw  in  it,  and  a  blight 
upon  it !  What  a  misery  to  lose  at  last,  as  we  must  ine- 
vitably do,  the  very  thing  for  which  all  our  sacrifices  have 
been  made,  the  respect  of  others !  Misery  of  miseries, 
thus  to  lose  even  respect  for  self!  Religion,  which  ought 
to  be  our  peace,  becomes  our  torment.  The  very  sacra- 
ments have  a  feeling  of  incompleteness  about  them,  as  if 
we  did  not,  as  we  do  not,  use  them  rightly;  and  our  com- 
munication with  our  director,  which  should  be  medicinal, 
is  poisoned  by  this  spirit.  Surely  we  must  try  to  get  to 
the  bottom  of  the  matter,  and  to  study  the  various  phases 
of  this  disease  of  pious  souls.  A  general  wish  to  please, 
a  laying  ourselves  out  in  particular  subject  matters  in 
order  to  please,  building  castles  in  the  air  and  imagining 
heroic  acts,  reflecting  on  the  praise  bestowed  upon  us,  and 
giving  way  to  low  spirits  when  dispraised, — these  are  all 
manifestations  of  this  horrible  human  respect. 

Human  respect,  however,  is  not  so  much  a  particular 
fault,  as  a  whole  world  of  faults.  It  is  the  death  of  all 
religion.     We  shall  never  have  an  adequate  horror  of  it 


HUMAN   RESPECT.  153 

until  we  admit  that  these  hard  words  are  no  exaggeration. 
Let  us  therefore  look  at  the  place  which  it  occupies  in  the 
grand  struggle  between  good  and  evil.  First  of  all,  let 
us  trace  its  rise;  for  this  is  a  difficult  problem,  considering 
how  in  detail  we  all  disbelieve  in  each  other.  The  espe- 
cial task  of  Christians  is  the  realization  of  the  invisible 
world.  They  have  different  standards  of  right  and  wrong 
from  the  votaries  of  earth.  They  live  inextricably  mixed 
up  with  the  children  of  the  world,  as  men  using  the  same 
language  with  different  meanings,  and  the  confusion  and 
apparent  deceit  grow  worse  every  day,  and  the  world,  the 
owner  of  the  territory  or  its  lessee,  more  and  more  angry, 
and  inclined,  in  spite  of  its  theory  of  haughty  toleration, 
to  persecute  those  who  thus  wilfully  put  themselves  at 
variance  with  the  public  peace.  Men  feel  that  religious 
people  are  right,  and  on  that  very  account  they  will  not 
look  the  fact  in  the  face,  and  realize  it.  They  feel  it, 
because  they  feel  that  they  are  not  irresponsible.  Yet 
they  chafe  at  the  judgments  of  God,  and  His  incessant 
interference;  at  the  quiet  way  in  which  He  gives  His 
judgments,  and  takes  His  own  time  to  execute  His  ver- 
dicts. So,  not  being  able  to  do  without  the  judicial  power, 
they  consolidate  God  from  Three  Divine  Persons  into  a 
function,  a  cause,  a  pantheistic  fluid,  or  a  mechanical  force, 
and  transfer  the  judicial  power  to  mankind  in  a  body. 
This  seems  to  be  the  account  of  human  respect  in  the 
mind.  Men  in  all  generations  fret  under  God's  judicial 
power.  It  seems  as  if,  because  of  this  fretfulness,  it  were 
one  of  the  most  unutterable  of  His  compassions  that  He 
should  have  confided  his  ultimate  judicial  rights  to  our 
Lord  as  Man,  and  that  in  virtue  of  the  Sacred  Humanity 
He  should  be  our  judge.     Looked  at  in  a  human  point 


154  HUMAN   RESPECT. 

of  view,  inen's  transfer  of  the  judicial  power  to  themselves 
may  be  said  to  have  worked  admirably.  Social  comfort, 
a  standard  of  endurable  morals,  and  generally  what  n\aj 
be  called  for  the  moment  live-ableness,  have  come  of  it. 
It  causes  a  certain  amount  of  individual  unhappin^as, 
because  its  police  is  harsh  and  rough,  and  the  procedures 
of  its  court  unkindly,  and  of  the  Draconian  school.  But 
men  have  a  compensation  for  this  in  its  giving  over  to 
them,  utterly  unquestioned,  the  whole  region  of  thought 
Under  the  administration  of  God,  thoughts  were  acts,  nnd 
were  tried  and  found  guilty  as  such.  They  furnished  the 
most  abundant  materials  for  its  tribunals,  and  were  ust 
what  caused  His  jurisdiction  to  press  so  heavily  upon  the 
soul.  Now  all  this  is  free.  Calumny,  detraction,  »ash 
judgments,  spiteful  criticism,  —  they  make  us  win*--*  as 
they  visit  our  outward  acts ;  but  we  may  be  as  base  hi  we 
please  in  thought,  and  yet  walk  through  human  cmrts 
with  proud  eye,  and  head  erect. 

No  wonder  that  when  once  human  respect  had  taken 
its  place  among  the  powers  of  the  world,  it  should  cause 
especial  desolation  in  the  religious  mind,  and  become  a 
worse  evil  and  a  greater  misery  there  than  elsewhere. 
For  it  is  itself  a  sort  of  spurious  counterfeit  religion.  For 
what  is  religiousness  but  the  sensible  presence  of  God, 
and  religion  the  worship  of  Him  ?  In  religion,  the  pre- 
sence of  God  is  our  atmosphere.  Sacraments,  and  prayer, 
and  mortification,  and  all  the  exercises  of  the  spiritual 
life  are  so  many  appointments,  not  only  for  realizing  it, 
but  for  substantially  introducing  it  both  into  body  and 
soul.  The  respiration  of  our  soul  depends  upon  it.  It 
producer  a  certain  kind  of  character,  a  type  of  its  own 
sort  and  easily  recognized,  a  supernatural  character  which 


HUMAN   RESPECT.  1*^6 

inspires  other  men  with  awe,  love,  hatred,  or  contempt, 
according  to  the  different  points  of  view  from  which  they 
look  at  it.  To  the  pure-minded,  it  is  the  greatest  possible 
amount  of  happiness  on  earth;  for  it  infuses  into  us  a 
certain  marvellous  unreasoning  instinct  for  another  world, 
as  being  faith's  sight  of  Him  who  is  invisible.  Yet  it  is 
hardly  conscious  what,  it  is  it  sees.  Now  is  not  human 
respect,  in  its  own  way,  a  simple  copy  and  caricature  of 
all  this  ?  A  something  which  undertakes  to  perform  for 
the  world  every  function  which  the  presence  of  God  per- 
forms for  the  enlightened  soul  ?  It  is  in  fact  a  mental 
paganism. 

It  is  this  similarity  to  a  false  religion  which  makes 
human  respect  so  peculiarly  dangerous.  It  does  not 
alarm  us  by  any  grossness.  On  the  contrary  it  forces  sin 
into  concealment.  Not  that  this  is  any  real  boon  to  the 
best  interests  of  men,  for  certain  of  the  deadliest  sins 
thrive  best  under  cover.  It  confuses  the  boundaries  be- 
tween public  opinion  and  itself,  and  pretends  an  alliance 
with  prudence  and  discretion.  This  is  a  stratagem  to  be 
guarded  against.  For  public  opinion  is  within  limits  a 
legitimate  power;  and  the  man  who  because  he  was  de- 
vout, should  lay  it  down  as  a  principle  that  he  would 
never  respect  public  opinion  or  be  swayed  by  it,  would  be 
paving  the  way  for  the  triumphs  of  delusion.  Nothing 
can  be  more  alien  to  the  moderation  of  the  Church. 
There  is  avast  difference  between  what  my  fellow-citizens 
expect  of  me  and  show  beforehand  that  they  expect  and 
give  reasons  for  expecting,  and  the  criticism  they  may 
pass  upon  my  actions  and  my  doing  them  rather  with 
reference  to  that  criticism  than  to  the  wish  of  God 
Moreover,    human    respect   unsupernaturalizes    actions 


166  HUMAN   RESPECT. 

which  are  good  in  substance.  It  kills  the  nerve  of  the 
intention ;  but  it  gives  us  no  such  smart  warning  as  the 
nerve  of  a  tooth  does  in  dying.  Tt  is  like  a  worm  in  a 
nut ;  it  eats  away  the  kernel  of  our  motive,  and  lets  the 
fruit  hang  as  fairly  from  the  tree  as  ever  Religion  is  so 
much  a  matter  of  motives  that  this  amounts  to  destroy- 
ing it  altogether,  and  as  human  respect  introduces  a 
directly  wrong  motive  in  lieu  of  the  right  one,  it  destroys 
spirituality  in  the  most  fatal  way.  Thus  it  is  one  of  the 
completest  instruments,  which  corrupt  nature  puts  into 
the  devil's  hands  and  at  his  disposal  for  the  destruction 
of  souls.  What  can  be  more  hateful  than  this,  and  what 
moro  odious  in  the  sight  of  God  ?  A  caricature  is  al- 
ways odious,  and  it  is  odious  in  proportion  to  the  beauty 
and  dignity  of  what  it  caricatures ;  and  as  we  have  seen, 
human  respect  is  a  caricature  of  the  presence  and  judicial 
power  of  God. 

Few  are  aware  until  they  honestly  turn  to  God,  how 
completely  they  are  the  slaves  of  this  vice.  Then  they 
wake  up  to  a  sense  of  it,  and  see  how  it  is  in  their  blood, 
as  if  it  were  their  life  and  their  identity,  an  inexplicable 
unconquerable  vital  thing.  Its  rise  is  a  mystery,  for 
which  we  can  only  invent  a  theory.  No  one  can  tell  for 
sure  how  it  rose,  or  when,  or  why ;  it  has  been  like  an 
exhalation  from  corrupt  humanity,  the  spreading  of  a 
silent  pestilence  that  has  no  external  symptoms.  There 
is  not  a  class  of  society  which  it  has  not  mastered,  no 
corner  of  private  life  that  it  has  not  invaded,  no  convent 
cell  but  its  air  is  freighted  with  the  poisonous  influence. 
It  rivals,  what  theologians  call  the  pluri-presence  of  Satan. 
Its  strength  is  so  great  that  it  can  get  the  better  of  God's 
commandments  and  of  the  precepts  of  His  Church,  nay. 


HUMAN   RESPECT.  167 

of  a  man's  own  will,  which  last  conquest  even  grace  and 
penance  find  it  difficult  to  achieve.  It  appears  to  increase 
with  civilization,  and  with  the  extension  of  all  means  of 
locomotion  and  publicity.  In  modern  society  men  syste- 
matize it,  acknowledge  it  as  a  power,  uphold  its  claims, 
and  punish  those  who  refuse  submission.  God  is  an  ex- 
king  amongst  us,  legitimate  perhaps  but  deposed.  It  is 
much  if  we  build  Him  in  His  own  kingdom  a  house  made 
with  hands  that  He  may  dwell  therein,  and  keep  Him- 
self within-doors.  Surely  if  the  evil  one  has  not  preter- 
naturally  helped  human  respect,  he  has  at  least  concen- 
trated his  energies  on  its  spread  and  success.  He  is 
never  more  a  prince  than  when  he  stoops  to  be  the  mis- 
sionary of  human  respect. 

Look  into  your  own  soul,  and  see  how  far  this  power 
has  brought  you  into  subjection.  Is  there  a  nook  in  your 
whole  being,  wherein  you  can  sit  down  unmolested  and 
breathe  fresh  air  ?  Is  there  any  exercise  however  spiri- 
tual, any  occupation  however  sacred,  any  duty  however 
solemn,  over  which  the  attractive  influence  of  human  re- 
Bpect  is  not  being  exercised  ?  Have  you  any  sanctuary, 
the  inside  of  which  it  has  never  seen  ?  When  you  have 
thought  it  conquered,  how  often  has  it  risen  up  again,  as 
if  defeat  refreshed  it  like  sleep  ?  Does  it  not  follow  you 
as  your  shadow,  as  a  perpetual  black  spot  in  the  sweet 
sunshine  ?  Yet  how  long  is  it  since  you  turned  to  God, 
and  became  spiritual  ?  How  many  Lents  and  Months  of 
Mary  have  you  passed,  how  many  sacraments  received, 
how  many  indulgences  gained  ?  And  yet  this  human  re- 
spect so  active,  so  robust,  so  unwearied,  so  ubiquitous? 
Can  there  be  any  question  nearer  your  heart  than  what 
concerns  the  remedies  for  this  evil r 
14 


L58  HUMAN   RESPECT. 

The  Church  provides  remedies  for  us  in  two  ways :  in 
her  general  system,  and  in  her  dealing  with  individual 
souls.  She  begins  by  boldly  pronouncing  a  sentence  of 
excommunication  against  the  world,  ignores  its  judgments 
in  her  own  subject-matter  of  religion,  and  proclaims  its 
friendship  nothing  less  than  a  declaration  of  war  against 
God.  She  gives  her  children  different  standards  of  right 
and  wrong  from  the  world,  and  an  opposite  rule  of  con- 
duct. All  her  positive  precepts  and  her  obligations  of 
outward  profession  of  faith  are  so  many  protests  against 
human  respect,  and  she  canonizes  just  those  men  who 
have  been  heroes  in  their  contempt  for  it.  The  world  feels 
and  understands  the  significance  of  these  things,  and  shows 
it  by  anger,  exhibiting  all  the  quick  jealousy  of  a  conscious 
usurper. 

But  of  far  greater  efficacy  are  the  remedies  which  she 
administers  to  single  souls  in  the  confessional  and  in  spi- 
ritual direction.  The  world  dreads  the  secret  power  of 
that  benign,  cogent,  and  unreported  tribunal.  First  of 
all,  the  practice  of  the  Presence  of  God  is  pitted  against 
this  universal  human  respect.  We  are  taught  how  to 
act  slowly,  and  to  unite  all  our  actions  to  God  by  a  pure 
intention.  We  are  bidden  to  take  this  fault  as  the  sub- 
ject of  our  particular  examination  of  conscience,  to  pray 
earnestly  against  it,  and  to  be  full  about  our  falls  when 
we  accuse  ourselves  in  confession.  Even  in  indifferent 
things  we  are  recommended  to  adopt  that  line  of  conduct 
which  tells  most  against  human  respect,  were  it  only  for 
the  sake  of  mortification.  This  is  often  the  rationale  of 
the  seemingly  absurd  and  childish  mortifications  imposed 
in  religious  houses.  For  human  respect  is  but  a  veiled 
worship  of  self,  which  we  seem  to  transfer  to  the  world, 


HUMAN    RESPECT.  159 

because  self  is  even  to  us  so  small  an  object.  And  what- 
ever kills  this  worship  of  self,  as  such  mortifications  do, 
is  a  blow  to  human  respect.  In  casting  out  devils,  the 
saints  have  often  delighted  to  use  puerile  means ;  so  also 
may  we  cast  this  devil  out  of  ourselves.  Once  let  our 
souls  be  possessed  by  a  timid,  child-like  devotion  to  the 
Eye  of  God,  eternal  and  unsleeping,  and  human  respect 
will  die  away  and  disappear,  as  the  autumnal  leaves  waste 
in  the  rain,  and  enrich  the  soil  for  the  coming  spring. 

But  the  great  thing  is  to  understand  our  real  position 
in  the  world  and  relation  to  it.  This  knowledge  is  a  per- 
fect fortress  against  human  respect,  which  is  one  of  the 
chief  causes  of  failure  in  aiming  at  perfection.  Let  us 
then  try  to  ascertain  how  pious  people  stand  to  the  world, 
and  the  world  to  them. 

When  we  give  ourselves  up  to  God,  we  deliberately 
commit  ourselves  to  live  a  supernatural  life.  Now  what 
does  a  supernatural  life  mean  ?  It  means  giving  up  this 
life  altogether,  as  seeing  we  cannot  have  both  worlds. 
Altogether !  I  hear  you  say.  Yes  !  altogether.  For 
how  would  you  have  me  qualify  it  ?  Not  that  we  shall 
not  be  a  thousand  times  happier  and  sunnier  even  in  this 
life ;  but  it  is  from  out  the  other  life  that  the  sunshine 
and  happiness  will  come.  This  life  must  go,  and  alto- 
gether. There  is  no  smoothing  the  word  down.  A  super- 
natural life  means  that  we  do  not  make  sin  the  limit  of 
our  freedom,  but  that  we  draw  the  line  much  nearer  home, 
by  the  evangelical  counsels.  It  means  mortification,  and 
mortification  is  the  inflicting  of  voluntary  punishment  od 
ourselves,  as  if  passing  sentence  on  ourselves  and  exe- 
cuting it  before  the  day  of  wrath.  We  put  other  interests, 
other  loves,  other  enjoyments,  in  the  place  of  those  of  the 


160  Human  respect. 

world.  A  conviction  of  our  own  weakness  is  the  ground 
work  of  all  our  actions,  and  we  lean  our  whole  weight  ou 
supernatural  aids  and  sacramental  assistances,  as  depend- 
ing solely  upon*  them.  To  a  certain  extent  we  even  become 
unsocial  by  silence,  or  solitude,  or  penance,  or  seeming  ec- 
centricity, or  vocation.  In  a  word,  we  deliberately  become 
members  of  a  minority,  knowing  we  shall  suffer  for  it. 

Now,  realizing  this  significancy  of  the  spiritual  life, 
what  is  the  view  the  world  will  naturally  take  of  us  and 
how  will  it  feel  towards  us?  The  world,  half  uncon- 
sciously, believes  in  its  own  infallibility.  Hence  it  is  first 
of  all  surprised  and  then  irritated  with  our  venturing  to 
act  on  different  principles  from  itself.  Such  a  line  of 
action  denies  the  world's  supremacy,  and  contradicts  its 
narrow  code  of  prudence  and  discretion.  Our  conduct  is 
therefore  a  reflection  on  the  world,  as  if  God  had  outlawed 
it,  which  He  has.  Its  fashions,  its  sects,  its  pursuits,  its 
struggles,  its  tyranny  and  its  conceits  are  to  us  no  better 
than  a  self-important,  grandiloquent  puerility.  Meanwhile, 
though  we  ignore  the  world,  the  world  cannot  ignore  us, 
for  we  are  a  fact,  intruding  on  its  domain  and  interfering 
with  its  hypothesis.  We  ignore  the  world,  and  ignoring 
is  the  policy  of  the  extremes  of  weakness  and  strength. 
In  our  case  it  is  of  both,  natural  weakness,  supernatural 
strength. 

What  sort  of  treatment  then  must  we  expect  at  the 
world's  hands?  It  will  have  its  phases  and  varieties  ac- 
cording to  circumstances.  But  on  the  whole  we  must 
expect  as  follows.  If  we  succeed  in  what  we  undertake 
for  God,  or  have  influence,  or  convert  persons,  or  take  any 
high  line,  or  reproach  others  by  our  examples,  we  must 
make  our  account  to  be  hated.     We  shall  be  feared,  and 


HUMAN   RESPECT.  161 

with  an  angry  fear,  when  men  see  we  have  a  view  and  go 
on  a  principle,  which  they  do  not;  and  they  fear  it  be 
cause  they  prognosticate  our  success.  Men  will  fear  us 
also,  when  they  think  we  are  working  for  God  in  secret, 
and  they  cannot  find  out  how,  and  this  they  call  Jesuitism, 
a  holy  and  a  good  word  to  ears  wise  and  true  !  They  will 
moreover  suspect  us  of  all  manner  of  strange  misdemean- 
ours. They  can  hardly  help  it;  for  the  disproportion  of 
means  to  ends  in  supernatural  conduct  is  ever  a  teazing, 
baffling  problem  to  the  carnal  mind.  They  will  blame  us; 
for  blame  is  easy;  and  we  swerve  from  men's  usual  stan- 
dard of  praise.  Moreover,  condemnation  of  us  is  safe;  for 
even  so-called  moderate  men  on  our  own  side  throw  us 
Dverboard.  With  them  indiscretion  means  provoking  the 
world,  and  not  being  friends  with  that  whose  friendship 
the  Holy  Ghost  tells  us  is  enmity  with  God.  We  shall 
be  misunderstood,  because  even  those  who  would  naturally 
take  a  good-natured  view  of  us  cannot  see  what  we  see. 
They  have  no  grasp  of  our  principle  o  so  they  often 
think  they  have  got  logical  proof  or  our  inconsistency. 
Besides  which,  we  cannot  even  give  a  good  account  of  our- 
selves. We  must  expect  also,  hard  as  we  must  strive  to 
hinder  it,  to  be  more  or  less  at  variance  with  flesh  and 
blood.  Vocations,  devotions  and  penances  have  a  sad 
though  inculpable  liability  to  disturb  family  peace.  Pa- 
rents are  slow  to  give  in  to  God,  even  long  after  children 
are  come  to  years  of  ripe  discretion.  For  instance,  if  a 
son  marries,  he  will  have  liberty,  because  the  world  bids 
it;  if  he  enters  orders  or  religion,  he  will  not,  because 
only  the  Church  bids  it  then.  Yet  they  are  good  people, 
and  religious  in  their  way;  why  should  not  we  be  like 
them  ?  So  they  think,  and  others  say.  We  cannot  see 
things  in  their  light,  and  they  cannot  see  things  in  ours 
14* 


162  HUMAN    RESPECT. 

Now  to  something  of  this  kind,  more  or  less,  we  com- 
mitted  ourselves  when  we  took  up  the  spiritual  life  in 
earnest.  We  knew  what  we  were  about.  From  that 
hour  we  parted  company  with  the  world,  nevermore  to 
do  aught  but  fly  from  it  as  a  plague,  or  face  it  as  a  foe. 
Human  respect,  therefore,  must  henceforth  be  for  us  either 
an  impossibility,  or  an  inconsistency,  or  a  sin.  What 
have  we  to  do  with  giving  or  taking  the  world's  respect, 
which  we  have  bound  ourselves  eternally  to  disrespect? 
Enough  for  us  that  we  have  taken  ourselves  out  of  the 
world's  hands,  and  out  of  our  own,  and  put  ourselves  into 
the  Hands  of  God,  and  we  have  felt  those  hands,  0  happy 
we  1  gently  but  firmly  close  over  u.«,  and  hold  us  fast. 


MORTIFICATION    OUR    TRUE   PERSEVERANCE        163 


CHAPTER  XL 

MORTIFICATION   OUR   TRUE   PERSEVERANCE. 

The  true  idea  of  mortification  is,  that  it  is  the  love  of 
Jesus,  urged  into  that  shape  partly  in  imitation  of  Him, 
partly  to  express  its  own  vehemence,  and  partly  to  secure, 
by  an  instinct  of  self-preservation,  its  own  perseverance. 
There  can  be  no  true  or  enduring  love  without  it,  for  a 
certain  amount  of  it  is  requisite  in  order  to  avoid  sin  and 
to  keep  the  commandments.  Neither  without  it  is  there 
any  respectable  perseverance  in  the  spiritual  life.  The 
rest  which  forms  part  of  the  normal  state  of  the  spiritual 
life  is  not  safe  without  it,  because  of  the  propension  of 
nature  to  seek  repose  in  natural  ways  when  supernatural 
are  no  longer  open  to  it.  Mortification  is  both  interior 
and  exterior;  and  of  course  the  superior  excellence  of  the 
interior  is  beyond  question.  But  if  there  is  one  doctrine 
more  important  than  another  on  this  subject,  it  is  that 
there  can  be  no  interior  mortification  without  exterior; 
and  this  last  must  come  first.  In  a  word,  to  be  spiritual, 
bodily  mortification  is  indispensable. 

Some  have  spoken  as  if  bodily  mortification  were  less 
necessary  in  modern  times  than  it  was  before,  and  conse 
quently  that  the  recommendations  of  spiritual  writers 
under  this  head  are  to  be  taken  with  considerable  abate- 
ment. If  this  means  that  a  less  degree  of  exterior  morti- 
fication is  necessary  for  holiness  now  than  was  necessary 
for  past  ages  of  the  Church,  nothing  can  be  more  untrue, 


164       MORTIFICATION   OUR   TRUE   PERSEVERANCE. 

and  it  comes  up  to  the  verge  of  condemned  propositions 
If  it  means  that  increased  valetudinarianism  and  the  uni- 
versality of  nervous  diseases,  combiued  with  other  causes, 
discreetly  point  to  a  change  in  the  kind  of  mortifications, 
the  proposition  may  be  assented  to,  with  jealousy,  however, 
and  wary  limitations.  The  Lenten  Indults  of  the  Church 
may  be  taken  as  an  illustration. 

But  this  false  doctrine  is  so  deep  in  the  minds  of  many 
that  it  is  necessary  to  combat  it  before  we  proceed  fur- 
ther. The  degree  of  mortification  and  its  idea  must  re- 
main the  same  in  all  ages  of  the  Church  :  for  penance  is 
an  abiding  mark  of  the  Church.  To  do  penance  because 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand  is  the  especial  work  of  a 
justified  soul.  To  get  grace,  to  keep  it  and  to  multiply 
it,  penance  is  necessary  at  every  step.  And  when  we  say 
that  holiness  is  a  note  of  the  Catholic  Church,  we  show 
forth  the  necessity  of  mortification ;  for  the  one  implies 
the  other,  the  first  includes  the  last.  The  heroic  exer- 
cise of  penance  must  be  proved  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
Church  before  she  will  proceed  to  the  canonization  of  a 
saint ;  and  the  quite  recent  beatification  of  Paul  of  the 
Cross  and  Marianna  of  (xesu  show  how  completely  unal- 
tered the  mind  of  the  Church  remains  on  this  point. 
Marianna's  life  is  nothing  but  one  unbroken  series  of  the 
most  startling  austerities,  which  make  us  shudder  from 
the  inventive  cruelty  which  they  display.  The  life  of 
St.  Rose  of  Lima,  by  the  side  of  this  other  American  Vir- 
gin, looks  soft  and  comfortable  and  easy.  It  seems  as  if 
Paul  were  raised  up  to  alarm  the  stagnant  eighteenth 
century,  and  to  renew  before  the  eyes  of  men  the  austeri- 
ties of  St.  Benedict,  St.  Bruno,  St.  Romuald,  or  St.  Peter 
Damiau.     He  reanimated  the  old  severe  monastic  spirit, 


MORTIFICATION   OUR   TRUE   PERSEVERAN  JE.       j  fi5 

in  contempt  of  all  modern  usages  and  mitigations,  and 
for  a  hundred  years  his  children  have  trodden  in  their 
father's  steps  with  undecaying  fervour.  The  existence 
and  primitive  vigour  of  the  austere  Passionists  is  one  of 
the  greatest  consolations  of  the  Church  in  these  effemi- 
nate days. 

We  must  remember  also  that,  according  to  the  teaching 
of  Scripture,  it  is  quite  a  mistake  to  regard,  as  some 
unthinkingly  do,  the  practice  of  mortification  as  a  counsel 
of  perfection,  and  a  work  of  supererogation. 

When  carried  to  a  certain  degree,  or  when  expressed  in 
certain  ways,  it  is  doubtless  so.  But  mortification  in 
itself,  and  to  a  certain  degree  and  under  given  circum- 
stances, is  of  precept  and  necessary  to  salvation.  This  is 
not  only  true  of  the  self-inflicted  pains  which  are  some- 
times of  obligation  in  order  to  overcome  vehement  temp- 
tations, or  of  those  various  mortifications  which  are  need- 
ful in  order  to  avoid  sin.  But  a  definite  amount  of  fasting 
and  abstinence,  irrespective  of  the  temptations  or  circum- 
stances of  individuals,  is  imposed  by  the  Church  on  all 
her  children  under  pain  of  eternal  damnation.  This  ex- 
presses the  idea  of  penance  for  its  own  sake,  and  the 
necessity  of  it  as  one  of  the  functions  of  the  Church,  as 
a  soul-saving  institute.  When,  therefore,  men  say  that 
they  do  not  practise  mortification,  but  leave  it  to  those 
who  wish  to  be  saints,  they  may  on  being  questioned  show 
that  they  are  sound  in  doctrine,  and  do  not  mean  the  error 
which  their  words,  strictly  taken,  imply ;  but  we  may  be 
sure  that  the  very  use  of  such  loose  language  is  a  proof 
that  a  real  error  about  mortification  is  deeply  imbedded 
in  their  minds. 

Indeed,  modern  luxury  and  effeminacy,  which  are  often 


16G       MORTIFICATION  OUR  TRDE  PERSEVERANCE. 

pleaded  as  arguments  for  an  abatement  of  mortification, 
may  just  as  well  be  called  forward  to  maintain  the  oppo- 
site view.  For  if  it  be  a  special  office  of  the  Church  to 
bear  witness  against  the  world,  her  witness  must  especially 
be  borne  against  the  reigning  vices  of  the  world;  and 
therefore  in  these  days,  against  effeminacy,  the  worship 
of  comfort  and  the  extravagances  of  luxury.  I  believe, 
if  this  unhappy  land  is  ever  to  be  converted,  of  which 
there  are  many  hopes  and  no  signs,  it  will  be  by  some 
religious  order  or  orders  who  shall  exhibit  to  a  degraded 
and  vicious  people  the  vision  of  evangelical  poverty  in  its 
sternest  perfection.  The  land  that  has  forsaken  Christ 
must  gather  to  the  Baptist  first,  and  be  attracted  to  the 
Jordan  by  the  simplicity  of  supernatural  strictness,  and 
antique  austerity.  Other  things  oan  do  much,  intellect, 
learning,  eloquence,  the  beauties  of  Catholic  charity,  the 
sweet  influences  of  a  purified  literature,  the  studiousness 
of  a  simple  and  apostolic  preaching.  But  the  great  work, 
if  the  great  work  is  in  the  counsels  of  God,  I  much  think 
is  a  triumph  in  this  land  reserved  only  for  evangelical 
poverty.  Not  poverty  in  the  grotesque  attire  of  mediaeval 
practice,  once  hallowed,  but  which  would  repel  men  now 
and  invite  contempt,  because  of  certain  developments 
separable  from  its  real  self,  and  at  present  unseasonable ; 
but  the  beautiful  poverty  of  the  apostles  and  first  ages  of 
the  Church,  with  the  common  garb  and  bright  clean  face 
and  hands  of  evangelical  austerity.* 

If  the  Church  has  to  witness  always  against  the  reign- 
ing vices  of  the  world,  each  soul  has  likewise,  if  not  to 
witness,  at  least  to  defend  itself,  against  them.    And  how 
shall  it  defend  itself  against  the  worship  of  bodily  com- 
*  St.  Matthew,  vi.  16. 


MORTIFICATION  OUR  TRUE  PERSEVERANCE.        167 

forts,  except  bv  depriving  itself  of  them  ?  Changeable 
as  the  world  is,  it  is  unchanging  too.  The  world,  the 
flesh,  and  the  devil,  are  practically  the  same  in  all  ages : 
and  so,  practically,  mortification  has  the  same  offices  to 
perform.  Whether  we  consider  the  soul  in  the  struggles 
of  its  conversion,  in  the  progress  of  its  illumination,  or  in 
its  variously  perfect  degrees  of  union  with  God,  we  shall 
find  that  bodily  mortifications  have  their  own  place,  and 
their  proper  work  to  do,  and  are  literally  indispensable. 

But  let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  various  objections 
urged  against  this.  First  we  are  told  that  the  health  of 
the  world  is  not  what  it  is,  and  that  if  there  is  an  equal, 
or  even  greater  longevity,  the  normal  state  of  health  is 
more  uniformly  valetudinarian,  and  that  if  inflammatory 
attacks  are  less  frequent,  nervous  complaints  on  the  other 
hand  are  more  prevalent,  and  that  the  relaxation  of 
church  discipline  on  the  subject  shows  her  appreciation  of 
these  facts.  All  this  is  true,  and  doubtless  many  most 
important  deductions  are  to  be  drawn  from  it.  Still  I 
maintain,  it  is  more  concerned  with  the  kind  of  mortifi- 
cation than  the  degree.  The  conduct  of  the  Church  in 
the  mitigation  of  fasting  is  as  wise  as  the  conduct  of  Leo 
XII.  was  marked  with  the  usual  practical  sagacity  of  the 
Holy  See,  when  he  caused  the  possibilities  of  the  old  ob- 
servance of  Lent  to  be  medically  investigated.  Moreover 
the  plea  of  health,  while  it  is  always  to  be  listened  to,  is 
to  be  listened  to  with  suspicion.  We  must  always  be 
jealous  of  the  side  on  which  nature  and  self  are  serving 
as  volunteers.  Great  then  as  we  must  admit  the  conse- 
quences of  a  state  of  valetudinarianism  to  be  on  the  spiri- 
tual life,  a  general  and  plenary  dispensation  from  corporal 
austerities  is  not  one  of  them  j  and  we  must  remembei 


168       MORTIFICATION  OUR  TRUE  PERSEVERANCE. 

also  that  our  forefathers,  who  troubled  their  heads  little 
enough  about  their  nerves,  and  had  no  tea  to  drink,  were 
accustomed  to  hear  from  Father  Baker,  who  only  gave 
utterance  to  the  old  mystical  tradition,  that  a  state  of 
robust  health  was  positively  a  disqualification  for  the 
higher  stages  of  the  spiritual  life. 

A  second  objection,  and  one  sometimes  urged  in  be- 
half of  priests  and  religious,  is  that  modern  hard  work 
is  a  substitute  for  ancient  penance.  The  fewness  of  the 
clergy  and  the  multitude  of  souls  have  certainly  brought 
upon  the  ecclesiastics  of  this  generation  an  overwhelming 
pressure  of  work ;  and  it  is  true  of  them,  as  it  always  has 
been  of  religious  orders  engaged  in  the  apostolate,  that 
the  measure  of  bodily  austerity  to  be  exacted  of  them  is 
very  different  from  that  which  we  expect  from  contempla- 
tives  and  solitaries.  I  do  not  say  therefore  that  this  ob- 
jection expresses  no  truth,  but  only  that  it  will  not  bear 
all  the  weight  men  put  upon  it.  Certain  kinds  of  penance 
are  incompatible  with  hard  work )  while  at  the  same  time 
the  excessive  exterior  propensities  which  hard  work  gives 
us  are  so  perilous  to  the  soul  that  certain  other  kinds  of 
penance  are  all  the  more  necessary  to  correct  this  disturb- 
ing force.  All  great  missionaries,  Segneri  and  Pinamonti, 
Leonard  of  Port  Maurice  and  Paul  of  the  Cross,  have 
worn  instruments  of  penance.  The  penalities  of  life,  as 
Da  Ponte  calls  them,  are  doubtless  an  excellent  penance 
when  endured  with  an  interior  spirit,  and  worth  far  more 
than  a  hundred  self-inflicted  pains.  Yet  he  who  maintains 
that  the  endurance  of  the  former  is  a  dispensation  from 
the  infliction  of  the  latter,  will  find  himself  out  of  har- 
mony with  the  whole  stream  of  approved  spiritual  teach- 
ing in  the  Church ;  and  the  brevity  of  his  perseverance 


MORTIFICATION   OUR   TRUE   PERSEVERANCE.     169 

in  the  interior  life  will  soon  show  both  himself  and  others 
the  completeness  of  his  delusion.  Without  bodily 
penance",  zealous  apostolic  work  hardens  the  heart  far 
more  than  it  sanctifies  it. 

A  third  class  of  objectors  tells  us  to  be  content  with 
the  trials  God  sends  us,  which  are  neither  few  nor  light. 
If  they  told  us  that  the  gay  suffering  and  graceful  wel- 
come of  these  dispensations  were  of  infinitely  greater  price 
than  the  sting  of  the  discipline  or  the  twinge  of  the  cate- 
nella,  most  true  and  most  important  would  the  lesson  be, 
and  to  many  a  hot-hearted  spiritual  suckling  quite  indis- 
pensable. Youth,  when  it  is  strong  and  well  and  is  full 
of  fervour  and  bathing  in  devotional  sweetness,  finds 
almost  a  physical  pleasure  in  tormenting  its  flesh  and 
pinching  its  redundant  health.  There  is  little  merit  in 
this,  as  there  is  little  difficulty  and  less  discretion.  And 
at  all  times  one  blow  from  God  is  worth  a  million  from 
ourselves.  But  the  objectors  fall  into  that  mistake  of 
exaggeration  which  runs  through  so  many  spiritual  books 
Because  A  is  more  important  than  B,  they  jump  to  the 
conclusion  that  B  is  of  no  importance  at  all.  Because 
the  mortifications  which  God  sends  us  are  more  efficacious 
and  less  delusive,  if  rightly  taken,  than  the  mortifications 
we  inflict  upon  ourselves,  it  does  not  follow  but  that  these 
last  are,  not  only  an  important,  but  even  an  indispensable 
element  in  the  spiritual  life.  We  may  answer  them 
briefly  as  follows.  Yes !  the  best  of  all  penances  is  to 
take  in  the  spirit  of  interior  compunction  the  mortifica- 
tions which  the  wise  and  affectionate  course  of  God's 
fatherly  providence  brings  upon  us ;  but  unless  we  have 
practised  ourselves  in  the  generous  habit  of  voluntary 
penances,  the  chances  are  very  much  indeed  against  our 
15 


170     MORTIFIOATION    OUR   TRUE   PERSEVERANCE. 

forming  this  interior  spirit  of  penance,  and  therefore  of 
getting  the  full  profit  out  of  the  involuntary  trials  Goq 
sends  us. 

Besides  these  objections  there  is  another  one  latent  in 
many  minds,  which  should  be  noticed.  Our  present 
habits  of  life  and  thought  lead  to  an  obvious  want  of 
sympathy  with  contemplation.  It  has  no  public  results 
on  which  we  can  look  complacently,  or  which  we  can 
parade  boastfully.  Everything  seems  waste  which  is  not 
visible ;  and  all  is  disappointment  which  is  not  plain  suc- 
cess. It  is  supernatural  principles  especially  which  are 
at  a  discount  in  modern  days.  Now  it  is  easy  to  see  how 
this  want  of  sympathy  with  contemplation  leads  to  a  mis- 
appreciation  of  austerity.  They  are  connected  with  each 
other,  and  both  enter  deeply  into  the  region  of  super- 
natural operations.  To  think  lightly  of  either  is  to  be 
out  of  harmony  with  the  mind  of  the  Church,  and  to  in- 
jure our  own  soul,  whatever  may  be  its  vocation,  by  nar- 
rowing the  range  of  its  supernatural  vision. 

From  all  these  considerations  it  may  warrantably  be 
concluded  that  there  is  nothing  in  modern  times  to  dis- 
pense us  either  from  the  obligation  or  the  counsel  of 
bodily  mortification,  that  on  the  contrary  there  is  much 
in  modern  habits  to  enforce  the  obligation  and  to  urge 
the  counsel,  and  that  all  the  modifications,  to  which  the 
actual  circumstances  of  modern  life  point,  concern  them- 
selves wholly  with  the  kind  of  mortification  and  not  at  all 
with  the  degree. 

Something  remains  to  be  said  on  the  uses  of  mortifi- 
cation. These  are  ten  in  number  and  all  of  them  de- 
serving a  serious  consideration.  Its  first  use  is  to  tame 
the  body  and  bring  its  rebellious  passions  under  tho  Jon- 


MORTIFICATION    OUR   TRUE   PERSEVERANCE.     171 

trol  of  grace  and  of  our  superior  will.  Full  half  the 
obstacles  to  a  spiritual  life  are  from  the  body,  and  the 
treacherous  succour  which  its  senses  give  to  our  baser 
passions.  These  must  be,  I  do  not  say  altogether  re- 
moved, but  effectually  crippled,  before  we  can  hope  to 
make  much  progress.  We  never  find  in  any  one  a  real 
arnestness  of  mind  or  seriousness  of  spirit,  where  honest 
attempts  are  not  being  made  to  keep  the  body  in  subjec- 
tion. The  reason  why  men  are  religious  under  sorrow 
and  not  at  other  times  is  that  they  do  not  practise  bodily 
mortification,  whereas  sorrow  afflicts  and  rebukes  the 
flesh,  and  so  for  the  time  performs  the  functions  of  mor- 
tification. Sorrow  acts  on  the  soul  through  the  body  as 
much  as  through  the  mind. 

The  second  use  is  to  increase  the  range  of  our  spiritual 
vision.  Sensitiveness  of  conscience  is  one  of  the  greatest 
gifts  which  God  gives  us  in  order  to  a  spiritual  life.  The 
things  of  God,  says  the  apostle,  can  only  be  spiritually 
discerned.  The  process  of  our  purification  by  grace 
depends  on  our  increasing  clearness  of  vision  as  to  what 
is  faulty  and  imperfect.  From  the  discernment  of  mortal 
sin  we  come  to  that  of  venial  sin,  from  venial  sin  to 
imperfections,  from  imperfections  to  less  perfect  ways  of 
doing  perfect  things,  and  from  that  to  a  delicate  percep- 
tion of  the  almost  invisible  infidelities  which  grieve  the 
Holy  Spirit  within  us.  And  if  bodily  mortification  isr 
not  the  sole  means  by  which  this  sensitiveness  of  con- 
science is  obtained,  it  is  one  of  the  chief,  as  well  from  its 
own  intrinsic  method  of  operation,  as  from  its  power  to 
impetrate  the  gift  from  God. 

This  brings  me  to  the  third  use  of  mortifications  of  all 
kinds,  which  is  to  obtain  power  with  God.     Suffering 


172      MORTIFICATION  OUR    TRUE   PERSEVERANCE. 

easily  becomes  power  in  the  things  of  God.  The  price 
He  sets  upon  it  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  world  was 
redeemed  by  suffering,  and  that  suffering  gives  their  palm 
to  the  martyrs  and  their  crown  to  the  confessors.  The 
gift  of  miracles  follows  hard  upon  austerity.  When  we 
complain  that  we  have  no  power  with  God,  that  our  pray- 
ers remain  unanswered,  that  our  efforts  to  root  out  some 
besetting  sin  are  unavailing,  and  that  we  give  way  to 
temptations  and  to  surprises  of  temper  or  loquacity,  it  is 
for  the  most  part  because  we  are  not  leading  mortified 
lives.  It  is  in  this  that  mortification  so  amply  repays  us 
for  the  pain  it  gives.  For  not  only  is  it  an  immense 
gain  to  have  power  with  God,  but  the  obvious  connection 
between  the  mortification  and  the  power  enables  us  not  so 
much  to  believe  in  supernatural  things  as  to  handle  them 
with  our  very  hands  and  feel  their  weight.  Indeed  even 
a  temptation  may  come  from  this  If,  then,  for  the  sake 
of  our  own  spiritual  growth  and  the  interest  we  feel  in 
the  glory  of  God,  the  triumph  of  the  faith,  and  the  salva- 
tion of  souls  near  and  dear  to  us,  we  desire  to  obtain 
power  with  God,  we  must  habitually  and  consistently 
practise  mortification. 

Its  fourth  use  is  to  intensify  our  love.  It  is  of  the 
nature  of  love  to  thrive  on  no  food  so  well  as  on  the  evi- 
dence of  its  own  vigour;  and  nothing  testifies  to  us  so 
securely  our  love  of  God,  as  the  infliction  of  voluntary 
austerities  upon  ourselves :  and  while  it  manifests  our 
love,  it  augments  it  also.  Pain,  too,  of  itself  prepares 
the  heart  for  the  emotions  of  love  by  softening  it  and 
making  it  childlike.  And  where  the  object  loved  and 
contemplated  is  one  of  sorrow  and  suffering,  as  Jesus  is, 
love  impels  us  more  or  less  vehemently  to  imitation.    Do 


MORTIFICATION  OUR   TRtJE   PERSEVERANCE.       173 

we  complain  that  our  love  of  our  dear  Lord  is  slackening? 
Forthwith  let  us  mortify  ourselves  in  something,  and  the 
smouldering  embers  will  break  into  a  bright  flame.  As 
sure  as  power  follows  mortification,  so  also  does  love. 

Its  fifth  use  is  to  make  us  unworldly,  and  to  inundate 
us  with  spiritual  joy.  Nothing  is  in  itself  so  unworldly 
as  mortification,  because  it  is  the  killing  of  everything 
the  world  most  prizes  and  cherishes.  It  breaks  off  all 
the  inordinate  attachments  to  creatures  which  we  may 
nave  formed,  and  it  hinders  us  from  embarrassing  our- 
selves with  new  ties ;  for  mortification  is  found  by  expe- 
rience to  be  so  difficult  that  we  dread  to  increase  the 
breadth  of  the  region  over  which  we  are  compelled  to 
extend  it.  And  what  is  each  new  attachment  but  a  fresh 
horde  of  savages  to  be  brought  painfully  beneath  control? 
As  to  spiritual  joy,  it  flows  like  a  tide  into  some  empty 
place.  In  proportion,  therefore,  as  our  hearts  are  void  of 
earthly  attachments,  and  an  attachment  may  be  defined 
to  be  an  affection  which  is  not  a  duty,  in  the  same  pro- 
portion are  they  capable  of  enjoying  the  sweetness  of  God. 
Hence  it  is  that  mortified  persons,  when  discreet,  are 
always  mirthful.  The  heart  is  lightened,  because  the 
burden  of  the  body  is  taken  off  it  Nothing  can  make  uf 
unworldly  but  mortification.  Have  we  never  seen  person* 
clouded  round  with  sorrow  so  deep  and  dark,  that  we 
approached  it  reverently  as  we  would  a  sanctuary,  and 
yet  it  had  not  made  the  sufferer  unworldly  ?  That  blessed 
office  is  the  monopoly  of  mortification. 

Its  sixth  use  is  to  hinder  our  making  a  great  mistake, 

which  is  the  leaving  the  Via  Purgativa  too  soon.     This 

is  perhaps  the  chiefest  danger  in  the  whole  of  the  spiritual 

life.    Many  try  to  go  so  fast  when  they  first  begin,  that  they 

15* 


174      MORTIFICATION  OUR   TRUE   PERSEVERANCE. 

lose  their  breath,  and  give  up  the  race  altogether;  and 
even  if  they  do  not,  they  cannot  leave  behind  what  they 
wish  to  leave,  before  the  appointed  time.  They  are  like 
men  running  wildly  to  outstrip  their  own  shadow.  It 
cannot  be.  Nature  wants  to  be  out  of  her  noviciate. 
Meditation  would  fain  be  thrust  up  into  Affective  Prayer, 
and  the  captivity  of  little  things  longs  to  expatiate  in 
.iberty  of  spirit.  The  bruised  flesh  asks  to  be  let  alone, 
and  interior  mortification  requests  to  be  allowed  its  primi- 
tive vagueness  and  to  remain  undefined.  Weekly  Com- 
munion gravitates  to  daily,  and  the  soul  a  little  tired  of 
looking  after  itself,  inclines  to  convert  the  world.  If 
there  is  difficult  navigation  anywhere  in  the  spiritual  life, 
it  is  here.  See !  the  reefs  are  strewn  with  wrecks,  and 
the  waves  wash  up  at  every  tide  the  bodies  of  half-made 
saints,  of  broken  heroes,  and  frustrated  vocations.  No 
harm  comes  of  keeping  long  in  the  lower  parts  of  the 
spiritual  life.  All  possible  evil  may  come  of  mounting 
too  quickly.  An  evil  when  it  is  mortified  first  looks  dead. 
It  feigns  death,  as  beetles  do.  If  it  succeeds  in  deceiving 
us,  and  we  pass  on,  we  shall  rue  it  bitterly.  It  is  oialy 
the  old  story :  look  well  to  your  foundations,  dig  them 
deep  and  build  broad,  and  plan  your  building  magnifi- 
cently large,  as  if  you  were  a  prince.  Mortification,  of  all 
things,  helps  us  to  do  this.  Its  difficulty  brings  out  our 
WBakness.  One  while  clumsy,  another  while  cowardly, 
we  are  content  to  be  kept  down,  when  daily  failures  are 
telling  us  what  would  happen  on  the  giddy  heights  above 
us.  But  how  long  shall  the  Via  Purgativa  last?  Who 
can  tell  ?  It  depends  upon  fervour.  Any  how,  we  must 
count  it  by  years,  not  by  months. 

The  seventh  use  of  mortification  is  to  be  found  in  its 


MORTIFICATION   OUR   TRUE   PERSEVERANCE.       175 

connection  with  prayer.  How  many  complaints  are  we 
daily  hearing  of  the  difficulties  of  mental  prayer !  Yet 
how  few  are  seeking  the  gift  of  prayer  by  the  single 
means  which  can  succeed,  namely,  mortification  !  If  we 
do  not  mortify  ourselves,  why  complain  ?  Listen  to  this 
vision,  whioh  Da  Ponte  relates  as  having  happened  to  a 
person  whom  he  knew.  He  gives  it  at  length  in  the 
third  tract  of  his  Spiritual  Guide.  God  showed  this 
person  the  state  of  a  tepid  and  idle  soul,  which  is  given 
to  prayer,  without  mortification.  She  saw  in  the  middle 
of  a  wide  plain  a  very  deep  and  strong  foundation,  white 
as  ivory,  about  which  a  fair,  ruddy  youth  of  admirable 
beauty  was  walking.  He  called  her  to  him,  and  said, 
I  am  the  son  of  a  powerful  king,  and  I  have  laid  this 
foundation  that  I  might  build  a  palace  for  you  to  dwell 
in,  and  to  receive  me  whenever  I  come  to  visit  you,  which 
I  shall  do  frequently,  provided  you  always  have  a  room 
ready  for  me,  and  open  as  soon  as  I  knock.  In  time, 
however,  I  shall  come  and  live  entirely  with  you,  and  you 
will  be  delighted  to  have  me  for  a  daily  guest.  Judge, 
however,  from  the  magnitude  of  this  foundation  what  the 
edifice  is  to  be.  Meanwhile  I  will  build,  and  you  must 
bring  me  all  the  materials.  The  lady  began  to  be  sore 
amazed  and  afflicted,  for  she  deemed  it  impossible  that 
she  should  of  herself  bring  all  the  requisite  materials. 
The  young  man,  however,  said,  Do  not  be  afraid;  you 
will  be  quite  able  to  do  it.  Begin  to  bring  something  at 
once,  and  I  will  help  you.  So  she  began  to  look  about 
for  something,  but  presently  stopped  and  fixed  her  eyes 
on  the  young  man,  whose  beauty  delighted  and  refreshed 
her.  Yet  she  took  no  pains  to  please  him.  She  feared 
him  very  much,  when  she  saw  that  he  was  watching  her. 


176      MORTIFICATION  OUR   TRUE   PERSEVERANCE 

Nevertheless  she  did  not  blush  at  her  disobedience 
While  she  was  thus  loitering,  she  saw  that  the  foundation 
was  being  gradually  covered  with  dust  and  straws  by  the 
wind,  and  sometimes  such  whirlwinds  of  dust  arose  that 
she  could  not  see  the  foundation  at  all.  Sometimes  floods 
of  rain  covered  the  whole  with  mud,  which  gradually 
spread  over  them,  and  caused  a  rank  vegetation  of  weeds 
to  sprout  up.  At  last,  nothing  of  the  foundation  re- 
mained but  the  spot  which  the  young  man's  feet  covered, 
and  at  last  a  sudden  whirlwind  covered  him,  and  the 
foundation  disappeared  from  her  sight  beneath  a  heap  of 
filth.  The  lady  was  very  much  afflicted  to  find  herself 
alone,  especially  as  she  was  soon  surrounded  by  ruinous 
heaps  of  lime,  sand,  and  stone.  She  bewailed  her 
tepidity  and  idleness,  but  believing  that  the  young  man 
was  still  hidden  in  some  of  the  cavities  of  the  foundation, 
she  cried  out  in  a  loud  voice,  Sir !  I  am  coming :  I  am 
bringing  materials  :  I  pray  you  come  forth  to  the  build- 
ing )  for  I  am  deeply  penitent  for  my  sloth  and  delay. 
While  she  was  in  these  dispositions,  the  vision  was  thus 
interpreted  to  her.  The  foundation  signifies  faith  and 
the  habits  of  other  virtues  which  Christ  infuses  into  the 
soul  at  baptism,  desiring  to  build  upon  them  a  fair  edifice 
of  lofty  perfection,  provided  the  soul  co-operates  with  Him 
by  bringing  the  necessary  materials,  observance  cf  the 
divine  precepts  and  counsels,  which  by  the  aid  of  the 
same  Lord,  it  can  do.  But  the  soul  is  often  so  delighted 
with  meditating  on  the  mysteries  of  Christ,  that  it 
becomes  tepid  and  idle  in  the  imitation  and  obedience  of 
Him,  and  through  this  inattention  and  slovenliness,  the 
habits  of  virtue  are  gradually  obscured  by  venial  sins, 
and  the  eyes  of  the  soul  so  dimmed  that  they  cannot  see 


MORTIFICATION    OUR   TRUE   PERSEVERANCE.        1?7 

oui  Lord.  In  punishment  of  this  sloth  He  sometimes 
allows  the  soul  to  fall  into  a  mortal  sin,  which  stains  and 
destroys  everything.  Then  by  the  mercy  of  God  it  re- 
pents, finds  the  3tones  of  contrition,  the  lime  of  confession, 
and  the  sands  of  satisfaction  all  around  it,  and  calls  on 
Jesus  with  a  loud  voice  to  pardon  the  sin  and  to  begin 
the  building,  for  the  second  time. 

The  eighth  use  of  mortification  is  to  give  depth  and 
strength  to  our  sanctity,  just  as  gymnastic  exercises  give 
us  muscle  and  play  of  strength.  This  is  connected  with 
what  was  said  a  while  ago  of  not  trying  to  get  out  of  the 
Via  Purgativa  too  quickly.  When  Simeon  Stylites  first 
began  to  stand  upon  his  column,  so  Theodoret  tells  us, 
he  heard  a  voice  in  his  sleep  which  said  to  him,  Arise 
and  dig !  He  seemed  to  dig  for  a  time,  and  then  ceased, 
when  the  voice  said  to  him,  Dig  deeper!  Four  times  he 
dug,  four  times  he  rested,  and  four  times  the  voice  cried, 
Dig  deeper !  After  that  it  said,  Now  build  without  toil ! 
There  can  surely  be  no  doubt  but  that  the  digging  was 
the  humbling  toil  of  mortification.  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  a  thin  meagre  piety,  a  religious  sentimentality,  which 
cannot  go  beyond  the  beauty  of  taste  or  the  pathos  of  a 
ceremonial,  a  devotion  for  the  sunshine  but  not  for  the 
storm ;  and  the  fault  of  the  lank  crazy  edifice  that  is 
raised  by  it  is  the  absence  of  mortification  in  its  original 
construction. 

The  ninth  use  of  mortification  concerns  bodily  austeri- 
ties. Without  exterior  mortification  it  is  idle  to  expect 
that  we  shall  ever  attain  the  higher  grace  of  interior  mor- 
tification. It  is  the  greatest  of  delusions  to  suppose  we 
Dan  mortify  judgment  and  will,  if  we  do  not  mortify  our 
body  also.     Interior  mortification  is  certainly  the  higher: 

M 


178        MORTIFICATION   OUR  TRUE  PERSEVERANCE. 

yet  in  some  sense  exterior  is  harder.  It  is  harder  because 
it  comes  first,  and  has  to  be  exercised  when  we  have  as 
yet  scarcely  any  empire  over  ourselves.  It  is  harder  be- 
cause it  is  more  sensible.  It  is  harder  because  our  victo- 
ries are  at  best  mean  to  look  at,  and  our  defeats  palpable 
and  discouraging.  It  is  harder  because  habit  helps  us 
less.  If  our  bodily  penances  are  rare,  each  one  has  all 
the  difficulties  of  a  new  beginning.  If  they  are  frequent, 
they  fall  on  unhealed  wounds.  Whereas  with  interior 
mortification  the  victories  always  look  dignified,  and  the 
defeats  are  surrounded  by  such  a  host  of  extenuating  cir- 
cumstances as  veils  their  disgrace.  We  must  remember 
that  throughout  our  spiritual  life  we  have  our  body  for 
our  companion,  and  none  but  a  very  few  privileged  saints 
have  ever  quite  subdued  it.  Moreover,  body  has  to  be 
saved  as  well  as  soul,  and  so  it  is  not  true  that,  in  devo- 
tion, exterior  things  are  only  a  means  to  interior.  They 
have,  beside  that  instrumental  character,  an  import  and 
significancy  of  their  own.  There  have  always  been  two 
classes  of  heresies  with  regard  to  spiritual  theology ;  and 
I  cannot  think  of  one  heresy  which  has  not  come  either 
from  a  disunion  of  the  interior  and  the  exterior,  or  a 
dwelling  on  one  of  them  to  the  neglect  and  depression  of 
the  other.  I  tremble  when  people  speak  much  of  inte- 
rior mortification,  it  sounds  so  like  a  confession  that  they 
are  leading  comfortable  lives.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
men  exaggerate  the  importance  of  bodily  austerities,  the 
chances  are  either  that  they  do  not  practise  them  at  all, 
jt  that,  practising  them,  they  rest  in  them  with  compla- 
cency, and  so  are  fakirs,  not  Christians,  having  no  spiritual 
life  which  can  deserve  the  name. 

The  tenth  and  last  use  of  mortification  is,  that  it  is  a 


MORTIFICATION   OUR  TRUE  PERSEVERANCE.        179 

most  excellent  school  for  the  queenly  virtue  of  discretion 
The  truly  mortified  man  will  as  little  think  of  not  listen- 
ing to  discretion,  as  he  would  think  of  listening  to 
cowardice.  Discretion  is  a  habit  of  hitting  a  mark,  and 
there  must  be  a  supernatural  truth  in  the  eye,  and  a 
supernatural  steadiness  in  the  hand,  in  order  to  attain 
this.  Mortification  is  the  grand  subject-matter  of  these 
trials  of  discretion  :  and  the  virtue  will  show  itself  in  obe- 
dience, humility,  self-distrust,  perseverance,  and  detach- 
ment from  the  penances  themselves.  This  was  the  trial 
to  which  the  bishops  put  Simeon  Stylites.  They  sent  a 
messenger  to  bid  him  come  down  from  his  pillar.  If  he 
hesitated,  they  should  know  that  his  extraordinary  voca- 
tion was  not  from  God.  But  the  words  were  hardly  out 
of  the  messenger's  mouth,  than  he  put  one  foot  down  from 
his  column.  In  his  docility  they  recognized  the  call  of 
God,  and  bade  him  stay. 

The  details  of  mortification  belong  rather  to  the  direc- 
tion of  particular  souls.  Each  one  requires  a  legislation 
for  himself.  There  seems  however  to  be  a  consent  among 
spiritual  writers  that  while  pleasures,  passions,  and  pains, 
are  the  three  great  fields  of  mortification,  a  certain  ordei 
ought  to  be  observed  in  our  application  to  them.  Plea- 
sures should  be  mortified  first,  passions  next,  and  pains  be 
undertaken  last.  They  do  not  mean  by  this  that  there 
are  three  distinct  and  successive  classes  of  penances,  and 
that  we  must  practise  one  till  we  are  out  of  the  other, 
any  more  than  writers  when  they  divide  mental  prayer 
into  twelve  or  fifteen  states  mean  that  we  go  out  of  one 
into  another,  as  if  they  were  separate  rooms.  All  that 
is  meant  is,  that  upon  the  whole  a  certain  order  is  to  be 
observed,  and  upon  the  whole  one  object  to  be  sought  at 
a  certain  time  rather  than  another  one. 


ISO      MORTIFICATION    OUR   TRUE   IERSEVERANCE. 

Mortifications  are  divided  into  exterior  and  interior 
Of  the  exterior  there  are  five  principal  classes.  First 
afflictive  penances,  such  as  fasting,  discipline,  hair  shirt, 
catenella,  cold,  and  wakefulness.  Of  these  the  one  which 
most  requires  jealousy  is  that  which  concerns  loss  of  sleep, 
and  next  to  it  the  bearing  of  cold.  For  the  results  of  these 
to  the  health  may  be  and  often  are  permanent.  And 
generally  of  all  these  penances,  two  things  may  be  ob- 
served, first  that  no  one  should  ever  take  them  out  of  his 
own  head,  without  counsel  and  obedience ;  and  secondly, 
that  perseverance  in  them  is  of  far  greater  moment  than 
either  quantity  or  quality.  It  has  often  been  noticed  that 
when  a  person  becomes  spiritual,  one  of  the  very  last  in- 
firmities which  leaves  him  is  an  im mortified  pleasure  in 
eating  and  drinking.  There  is  something  wonderfully 
humbling  in  this  :  and  we  must  pay  particular  attention 
to  it,  trying  to  mortify  ourselves  in  something  at  every 
meal,  and  not  to  eat  between  meal-times.  It  ought  to  be 
a  mortification  in  itself  to  read  what  Brillat-Savarin  has 
cleverly  said,  as  Descuret  quotes  him  in  his  Medicine  des 
Passions,  that  there  are  four  classes  of  men  given  to 
gluttony,  the  financiers,  the  physicians,  the  literary,  and 
the  devout;  the  financiers  for  the  sake  of  ostentation,  the 
physicians  by  seduction,  the  literary  by  way  of  distraction, 
and  the  devout  by  way  of  compensation  ! 

The  second  class  of  exterior  mortifications  consists  in 
the  custody  of  the  senses,  in  order  to  rebuke  levity  and 
curiosity,  and  in  these  singularity  and  affectation  should 
be  guarded  against.  Under  the  third  class  falls  the  patient 
bearing  of  illness  and  pain,  and  especially  the  acceptation 
of  death  in  the  spirit  of  penance.  Under  the  fourth  class 
oome  fatiguing  and  self-denying  works  for  the  good  of  our 


MORTIFICATION   OUR   TRUE   PERSEVERANCE.      181 

neighbour,  or  the  relief  of  the  poor,  or  the  exaltation  of 
the  faith ;  and  under  the  fifth,  all  that  is  penal  in  the 
common  tasks  and  daily  vicissitudes  of  life,  the  obligation 
of  work,  the  inconveniences  of  poverty,  the  weather,  and 
like  things,  all  which  may  become  meritorious  by  being 
endured  in  an  interior  spirit  of  penance,  and  united  to  our 
Lord's  endurance  of  them  in  His  Thirty-three  years. 
Under  the  head  of  interior  mortifications  comes  first 
f  all  the  mortification  of  our  own  judgment,  or  razionale, 
as  St.  Philip  called  it.  Can  there  be  a  harder  task  in 
the  whole  of  the  spiritual*  life  ?  If  you  ask  me  how  it  ia 
to  be  done,  I  answer,  —  the  words  are  easy,  not  so  the 
practice  —  Distrust  your  own  opinion,  and  acquire  the 
habit  of  surrendering  it  in  doubtful  things.  In  matters 
about  which  you  are  clear,  speak  modestly  and  then  be 
silent.  Try  never  to  have  an  opinion  contrary  to  that  of 
your  natural  and  immediate  superiors.  Let  their  presence 
be  the  death  of  your  own  views.  With  your  equals  try 
to  agree  in  matters  of  no  moment,  and  above  all,  have  no 
wish  to  be  listened  to.  Judge  favourably  of  all  things, 
and  be  ingenuous  in  giving  them  a  kindly  turn.  Con- 
demn nothing  either  in  the  general  or  the  particular;  but 
make  all  things  over  to  the  judgment  of  God,  When 
reason  and  virtue  oblige  you  to  speak,  do  so  with  such 
gentleness  and  want  of  emphasis  that  you  may  seem 
rather  to  despise  than  value  your  own  opinion. 

Mortifications  of  the  will  form  another  class.  The 
tongues  of  others  fill  a  third  to  overflowing.  Spiritual  de- 
solations are  a  fourth,  and  horrible  temptations,  specially 
allowed  by  God,  a  fifth.  All  these  have  their  own  symp- 
toms and  require  their  own  method  of  treatment  which  it 
would  be  out  of  place  here  to  investigate.  There  is 
16 


182       MORTIFICATION  OUR  TRUE  PERSEVERANCE. 

little  left  for  the  work  of  sanctification  to  do,  when  out 
will  is  conformed  to  the  Will  of  God,  and  endures  humbly 
and  sweetly  the  adverse  wills  of  others.  The  strife  of 
tongues  is  a  mortification  from  which  few  can  hope  to 
escape,  especially  if  they  are  either  endeavouring  to  do 
good  to  others  or  aiming  at  a  high  sanctity  for  themselves. 
It  was  one  of  the  ingredients  in  our  Saviour's  chalice,  and 
was  considered  by  the  psalmist  as  so  afflictive  that  he 
prayed  God  to  hide  him  from  it  beneath  the  shadow  of 
His  wings.  Spiritual  desolations,  so  hard  to  bear,  give 
both  courage  and  humility  to  our  relations  with  God, 
while  unusual  and  obstinate  temptations  purify  the  soul, 
as  in  a  very  crucible,  from  all  remains  of  earthly  dross. 

But  if  mortification  has  its  difficulties,  it  has  its  dangers 
also.  Many  mortifications  are  preceded  by  vain-glory, 
who  blows  the  trumpet  before  them.  Other  mortifications 
she  accompanies ;  and  some  even  receive  from  her  all  their 
life,  animation  and  perseverance.  It  is  as  if  this  evil 
spirit  had  a  standing  commission  from  her  master,  When- 
ever a  soul  is  about  to  practise  a  mortification  there  be  thou 
also !  The  remedy  for  this  is  to  put  all  our  mortifications 
under  obedience.  It  is  difficult  then  for  either  vain-glory, 
ostentation,  singularity,  affectation,  wilfulness,  or  indiscre- 
tion to  fasten  upon  our  penances  and  corrode  their  precious 
inward  life.  And  they  are  the  six  chief  dangers  of  mor- 
tification. Neither  must  we  forget  to  be  on  our  guard 
against  a  superstitious  idea  of  the  value  of  pain  growing 
up  in  our  minds  alongside  of  our  austerities.  Many  mor- 
tifications remain  mortifications  when  the  pain  of  them  haa 
passed  away;  and  the  value  of  them  depends  upon  the 
intensity  of  the  supernatural  intention  that  was  in  them, 
not  on  the  amount  of  physical  pain  or  bodily  discomfort 


MORTIFICATION  OUR  TRUE  PERSEVERANCE.       1  83 

Mortification  is  a  putting  something  to  death  and  the  pas- 
sion that  is  dead  already  is  more  mortified  than  one  that 
is  only  dying,  and  yet  the  last  feels  pain,  while  the  first 
is  past  all  feeling.  It  is  astonishing  how  many  are  un- 
consciously deceived  by  this  superstitious  notion  of  the 
value  of  the  mere  pain ;  not  that  it  is  without  value ;  but 
it  is  not  the  gem ;  it  is  only  the  setting  of  it.  It  is  this 
error  which  has  given  so  much  vogue  outside  the  Church, 
and  sometimes  also  to  unwary  persons  in  it,  to  the  delu- 
sion of  thinking  that  perfection  consists  in  always  doing 
what  we  dislike,  which  implies  that  our  affections  and 
passions  will  never  be  brought  to  like  the  things  of  God 
or  be  in  harmony  with  grace.  Thus  you  hear  of  persons 
having  a  scruple  whether  they  ought  to  be  kind  to  others 
because  they  have  so  much  sensible  pleasure  in  it,  or 
visiting  the  poor  for  the  same  reason,  or  following  a 
peculiar  bent  of  devotion.  Some  even  impose  it  as  a 
rule  upon  the  souls  they  guide.  In  almost  every  instance 
with  as  much  absurdity  as  indiscretion.  In  the  only  sense 
in  which  sound  mysticism  would  allow  of  such  a  maxim, 
it  would  require  a  special  and  clearly-marked  vocation, 
and  it  would  be  as  rare  as  the  call  to  make  St.  Theresa's 
and  St.  Andrew  Avellino's  vows,  always  to  do  what  was 
most  perfect.  Yet  the  Church  stopped  at  those  vows  when 
she  was  called  upon  to  canonize  the  saints,  and  would  not 
proceed  till  evidence  was  given  her  of  a  special  operation 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  No  one  ever  became  a  saint,  or  any- 
thing like  one,  by  ceasing  to  cultivate  the  sweeter  parts 
of  his  character  or  his  natural  virtues,  because  the  doing 
so  was  so  great  a  pleasure.  Yet  Jansenism  thought  that 
the  secret  of  perfection  lay  in  this  single  charm.  It 
is  a  most  odious  and  uncatholic  idea  of  asceticism- 


184       MORTIFICATION  OUR  TRUE  PERSEVERANCE. 

To  the  difficulties  and  dangers  of  mortification  we  must 
add  a  word  on  its  delusions.  It  is  a  fertile  subject.  Guil- 
lor£,  who  has  treated  of  the  subject  at  length  and  with 
his  usual  severity,  sums  it  all  up  by  describing  the  four 
classes  of  persons  who  are  most  subject  to  these  delusions. 
The  first  class  embraces  those  who  have  always  led  an  in- 
nocent life,  and  on  that  account  easily  dispense  themselves 
from  austerities ;  and  not  being  drawn  to  them  themselves, 
they  make  no  attempt  to  draw  others  that  way.  They  do 
not  see  why  they  should  maltreat  a  body  which  is  so  little 
rebellious,  and  inflict  on  it  such  constant  pain  when  it 
teases  them  with  but  an  occasional  disturbance.  The 
second  class  contains  those,  who,  though  their  lives  have 
been  far  from  innocent,  are  nevertheless  from  softness  of 
temperament  disinclined  to  austerities.  They  can  hardly 
believe  that  anything,  which  is  so  far  above  their  cow- 
ardice, as  this  persecution  of  self,  can  be  necessary  and 
indispensable.  Useful  they  are  willing  to  admit  it  to  be, 
but  surely  not  necessary ;  for  in  that  case  where  should 
they  be  ?  And  are  their  intellectual  views  of  perfection, 
or  their  sentimental  aspirations  after  it,  to  end  in  smoke  ? 
The  third  class  comprises  those  who  have  greatly  offended 
God,  and  therefore  think  they  must  set  no  bounds  to  theii 
austerities.  Hence  they  go  beyond  the  limits  of  sage 
reason  on  the  one  side,  and  the  inspirations  of  grace  on 
the  other.  The  fourth  class  numbers  men  of  fiery  zeal 
and  hot-tempered  enthusiasm,  whose  peace  is  in  war  and 
their  rest  in  struggle,  and  who  satisfy  nature  by  the  chas- 
tisement of  their  bodies.  But  when  the  blood  runs  o? 
the  face  grows  pale,  they  are  miserably  deceived  if  :hej 
consider  that  to  be  a  true  spiritual  mortification,  which 
has  only  been  the  rude  satisfaction  of  a  natural  and  1m 
pulsive  passion. 


THE  HUMAN   SPIRIT.  135 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE    HUMAN    SPIRIT. 

The  three  normal  dispositions  of  the  spiritual  life 
require  patience,  mortification,  and  the  absence  of  human 
respect,  in  order  rightly  to  perforin  the  functions  allotted 
them,  and  to  avoid  the  dangers  which  beset  them.  But 
there  are  also  three  evil  spirits  which  haunt  the  disposi- 
tions in  question.  Not  that  each  disposition  has  exactly 
its  one  bad  angel,  and  is  not  troubled  by  the  other  two ) 
but  on  the  whole,  the  disposition  of  struggle  is  liable  to 
the  attacks  of  what  may  be  called  the  human  spirit,  fatigue 
to  spiritual  idleness,  and  rest  to  the  neglect  of  prayer,  or 
the  unpraying  spirit.  We  have,  therefore,  now  to  consider 
these  three  things,  the  human  spirit,  spiritual  idleness 
and  prayer. 

The  kingdom  of  darkness,  the  power  and  wiliness  of 
Satan,  the  multitude  of  his  subordinate  ministers,  the 
ceaselessness  of  their  open  or  hidden  warfare  against  the 
servants  of  God,  cannot  be  too  often  the  subject  of  our 
most  grave  meditations,  as  well  as  the  object  of  our  hum- 
blest fears  and  most  prayerful  vigilance.  Still,  it  were  to 
be  wished  that  men's  views  of  this  agency  of  Satan  were 
always  kept  within  the  due  limits  of  sane  tneology.  They 
not  unfrequently  run  into  something  like  Manicbeism, 
and  at  least  give  us  an  idea  of  Almighty  God  which  has 
drifted  widely  from  that  which  Scripture  teaches.  We 
forget  that  the  devil  is  only  one  of  three  enemies  against 
X6* 


186  THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT. 

tvhom  at  baptism  we  vowed  to  do  battle,  and  thus  we 
transfer  to  him  all  the  phenomena  which  belong  rather  to 
the  flesh  and  the  world.  The  same  secret  vanity  which 
leads  us  to  a  superstitious  view  of  grace,  as  a  talisman 
which  is  to  act  without  the  co-operation  of  our  own  reso- 
lute will,  is  the  source  of  these  erroneous  views  of  the 
devil's  agency.  It  breaks  the  shame  of  our  falls  to  believe 
that  in  every  instance  we  have  wrestled  and  been  thrown 
by  an  evil  angel  of  tremendous  power,  and  not  that 
through  cowardice,  effeminacy  and  self-love  we  have  sim- 
ply given  in  to  the  suggestions  of  our  own  irresolute  will. 
Nay,  in  certain  temptations  men  will  allow  themselves  to 
be  almost  passive,  from  this  horrible  doctrine  about  the 
devil.  Were  they  logical,  they  would  soon  come  to  be- 
lieve the  blasphemy  of  the  necessity  of  sin.  What  their 
view  really  amounts  to  is  this,  that  man  is  a  certain  orga- 
nized reasonable  instrument,  who  is  possessed  by  the  devil, 
and  that  God  comes  and  tries  to  establish  a  counter-pos- 
session by  means  of  faith,  grace,  and  sacraments,  and  that 
man  has  little  to  do  with  the  matter  except  to  consent  to 
be  the  battle-field  of  the  two  spiritual  powers.  Every  one 
shudders  when  it  is  put  into  these  words.  But  follow  a 
soul,  who  has  got  this  wrong  idea,  into  the  whole  region 
of  temptations  and  scruples,  and  you  will  see  what  mis- 
takes it  makes  and  what  misfortunes  it  encounters,  a.id 
how  at  last,  to  use  St.  Bernard's  figure,  it  needs  no  devil 
to  tempt  it,  because  it  is  a  devil  to  itself.* 

*  The  same  doctrine  is  also  taught  very  strongly  by  Father  de 
Condren,  General  of  the  French  Oratory.  See  his  life  by  F.  Ame- 
lote,  p.  177,  xiv.  Of  course  this  side  of  the  question  must  not  ba 
exaggerated  any  more  than  the  other.  The  doctrine  of  the  person- 
ality and  influence  of  the  devil  is  peculiarly  needed  just  now  in  ordei 
So  meet  the  Sadduceism  of  the  day,  as  has  been  remarked  by  Dr. 


THE   HUMAN   SPIRIT.  187 

It  is  necessary,  therefore,  at  this  poin.,  that  I  should 
ask  my  readers  to  remember,  what  theology  teaches  them, 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  definite  human  spirit,  the 
spirit  of  man,  and  of  fallen  man,  and  that  it  has  ways 
And  operations  of  its  own  which  exercise  a  very  material 
influence  over  the  whole  of  our  spiritual  life.  What  is 
usually  taught  about  it  may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows. 
There  are  three  spirits  with  which  men  have  to  do,  the 
Divine,  the  diabolical,  and  the  human.  This  last  is  a 
definite  and  distinct  spirit  of  itself;  and  consists  of  the 
inclinations  of  our  fallen  nature  when  not  allied  to  either 
of  the  other  spirits.  So  that  the  mischief  which  it  causes 
in  the  spiritual  life  is  chiefly  of  a  negative  character,  inas- 
much as  it  leads  us  to  act  from  purely  natural  motives 
and  in  a  purely  natural  way,  apart  from  grace.  It  is 
known  by  its  always  gravitating,  independent  of  any 
satanical  impulsion,  to  peace,  comfort,  ease,  liberty,  and 
making  ample  provision  for  the  body.  In  a  word,  it  is  to 
good  persons,  what  the  spirits  of  the  world  and  the  devil 
are  to  bad  people,  incessantly  acting  upon  them  even  when 
gross  temptations  would  have  no  effect.  It  vitiates  what 
they  do,  without  making  it  wholly  evil. 

Brownson  in  his  Spirit-flapper.  Even  Bayle  in  his  Dictionnaire 
(Art.  Plotinus)  says  to  Christians,  Prove  to  your  adversaries  the  ex- 
istence of  evil  spirits,  and  you  -will  soon  see  them  forced  to  grant  you 
all  your  dogmas.  Mais  prouvez-leur  Texistence  des  mauvais  esprits, 
et  vous  les  verrez  hientot  forces  de  vous  accorder  tous  vos  dogmas. 
The  blasphemy  of  Voltaire  on  the  subject  is  too  well  known  to  need 
repeating  here.  Frederick  Schlegel  well  said  that  history  waa 
nothing  more  than  "an  incessant  struggle  of  nations  and  indivi- 
duals against  invisible  powers."  Father  Ravignan  remarked  justly 
and  pithily  of  the  devils  of  the  nineteenth  century,  Their  master- 
piece  has  been  to  get  themselves  denied  by  the  age.  Leur  chef 
d'oeuvre,  Messieurs,  e'est  de  s'Stre  fait  nier  par  ce  si&cle. 


188  THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT. 

The  various  ways  in  which  this  human  spirit  developes 
itself  in  the  spiritual  life  are  deserving  of  especial  study. 
It  often  causes  hot  feelings  to  be  mistaken  for  visitations 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Hence  it  is  that  determinations 
taken  in  moments  of  exaltation  and  excitement  are  so 
little  to  be  depended  on.  The  words  of  God  in  the  soul 
effect  what  they  say.  The  Divine  Voice  may  have  uttered 
but  a  single  sound,  one  little  word,  but  the  work  is  done. 
It  is  safe  to  build  upon  it  the  edifice  of  years.  Judge 
then  what  awful  consequences  follow  when  the  mere  effer- 
vescence of  the  human  spirit  is  mistaken  for  the  fire  of 
divine  inspiration  !  We  commit  ourselves  to  a  line  of 
action,  or  to  a  grave  step  in  life,  or  even  to  a  vow  from 
which  we  cannot  easily  be  dispensed,  on  the  strength  of  a 
mere  natural  excitement.  We  may  have  put  ourselves 
*nto  a  condition  in  which  unusual  aids  of  grace  are  requi- 
site in  order  to'  avoid  sin,  and  what  we  dream  was  God's 
covenant  to  give  us  those  graces,  was  nothing  more  than 
a  palpitation  of  the  heart,  and  a  bounding  of  the  blood. 
Many  are  the  great  beginnings  which  are  undertaken  in 
the  human  spirit,  and  as  many  and  as  great  the  ruins 
which  remain 

But  it  is  not  only  in  our  commencements  that  the 
agency  of  the  human  spirit  is  to  be  remarked.  In  the 
shape  of  self-love  it  creeps  into  works  well  begun,  and 
destroys  their  purity  and  saps  their  strength.  Or  it  comes 
upon  good  and  singleminded  intentions,  and  warps  them 
from  their  first  direction,  and  makes  them  useless  for  any 
supernatural  purpose.  Then  when  we  find  that  something 
has  gone  wrong,  the  same  human  spirit  makes  us  eager 
and  anxious  to  set  matters  right  and  to  renew  our  fervour 
in  its  own  way.     Consequectly,  as  a  means  to  this  end, 


THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT.  189 

we  undertake  austerities  on  a  mere  physical  impulse,  and 
out  of  a  humour  of  natural  self-revenge.  A  tendency  to 
talk  about  ourselves,  and  to  speak  of  our  spiritual  state, 
and  to  let  others  know  what  we  are  feeling  and  experi- 
encing, is  another  operation  of  the  human  spirit,  which 
does  the  devil's  work  for  him  without  his  having  thf 
trouble  of  interfering. 

But  the  human  spirit  can  do  more  than  give  us  an  im- 
pulse towards  good,  it  can  furnish  a  certain  amount  of 
facility  in  doing  it.  Elihu  thought  the  Holy  Ghost  moved 
him  to  reprove  Job,  and  his  spirit  gave  him  no  little  depth 
and  eloquence  in  his  reproofs.  Cardinal  Bona  says  that 
when  a  spiritual  man  finds  himself  filled  with  great  light, 
he  must  not  be  too  quick  in  concluding  that  it  is  the  work 
of  grace.*  It  may  come,  he  says,  just  as  well  from  the 
natural  vivacity  of  his  disposition,  or  from  the  mere  habit 
of  meditating  on  the  truths  of  religion,  and  the  habit  of 
meditation  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  grace  and 
gift  of  it,  or  it  may  come  from  a  simple  intellectual  spe- 
culation on  natural  and  divine  things.  Hence  it  is  that 
often  in  the  midst  of  such  light  our  will  remains  dry  and 
cold,  and  destitute  of  all  the  unction  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
We  do  not  judge  a  tree  by  its  branches  and  flowers,  but 
by  its  fruits;  so  we  judge  of  these  interior  lights  by  the 

*  The  criteria  of  Cardinal  Bona,  by  which  he  distinguishes  the 
human  spirit  from  the  diabolical,  have  attracted  the  notice  of  M.  de 
Mirville  in  his  first  MSmoire  on  Pneumatologie,  and  he  has  pro- 
mised to  consider  them  at  length,  and  in  connection  with  Catholio 
theology,  in  his  second  MSmoire.  Nous  Gtudierons  aussi  la  veritable 
nature  de  cet  ennemi  domestique  appele"  la  chair,  ennemi  que  le 
cardinal  Bona  ne  craint  pas  de  ranger  dans  la  classe-des  Esprits. 
Nous  tacherous  tout  a  lafois  de  bien  d6finir  le  vrai  r61e  de  ces  agent? 
psychologiqueo  et  physiologiques,  dans  les  ph6nomenes  magnetiques, 
ct  de  voir  s'ils  peuvent  jamais  y  remplacer  l'assistanco  d'un  Esprit 
Stranger.     Prem.  Mem.  p.  81.  3me  Edition. 


190  THE   HUMAN   SPIRIT. 

good  worts  which  they  produce.  If  we  examine  these 
lights  narrowly  we  shall  often  find  some  one  little  dark 
streak  in  them,  something,  it  may  be,  contrary  to  pru- 
dence or  alien  to  the  principles  of  Christian  perfection. 
A  dash  of  levity  is  an  illustration  of  this  :  for  levity  is 
an  especial  sign  of  the  human  spirit.  Richard  of  St. 
Victor  says  that  when  we  are  impelled  to  do  any  good 
work  easily  and  with  a  certain  feeling  of  levity,  that  levity 
)ught  to  make  us  fear  that  our  impulsion  is  rather  from 
the  flesh  than  from  the  Spirit,  especially  if  it  is  accom- 
panied by  anything  agreeable  to  nature.  In  like  manner 
the  joy  with  which  we  are  attracted  to  anything  ought  to 
be  suspected,  if  it  be  mingled  with  warmth  or  impatience ; 
for  the  Holy  Spirit  is  moderate,  patient,  tranquil,  and  the 
movements  He  excites  are  conformable  to  what  He  is  in 
Himself. 

Another  mark  of  the  human  spirit  is  to  be  found  in  the 
self-annoyance  or  disgust  which  arises  in  us  at  the  view 
of  o»r  own  faults,  which  we  shall  have  especially  to  con- 
sider hereafter.  It  casts  us  down  also  because  of  the 
defects  of  our  good  works  or  the  ill  success  of  earnest 
efforts.  We  wish  all  to  be  square  and  neat;  and  there 
are  some  dispositions  which  are  more  tried  by  the  absence 
of  finish  and  completeness  in  their  works  than  by  an 
actual  sin.  There  is  an  obstinate  attachment  to  devo- 
tional practices,  because  we  fancy  they  have  done  us 
good,  which  looks  like  supernatural  perseverance,  and  yet 
is  in  truth  nothing  but  the  pertinacity  of  the  human  spirit. 
If  sometimes  our  inward  life  is  inundated  with  a  gushing 
variety  of  good  thoughts  and  zealous  projects,  it  is  for  the 
most  part  to  be  attributed  to  the  human  spirit.  The  Holy 
Spirit  inundates  us  slowly,  noiselessly,  and  with  simplicity, 


THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT.  191 

.ike  the  flooding  of  low-lying  grounds  by  an  oozing  river. 
One  thing  at  a  time,  and  all  things  in  order,  such  are  the 
characteristics  for  the  most  part  of  divine  operations. 
Unevenness  and  fluctuation  of  spirits  is  another  human 
operation,  which  need  never  be  mistaken  for  divine.  The 
same  also  may  be  said  of  a  delusion  which  leads  us  to 
fancy  that  self-respect  requires  such  or  such  a  course  of 
action  in  us.  I  am  not  saying  that  where  there  is  such  a 
motive  there  is  always  sin,  but  that  the  action  is  purely 
human,  and  must  be  content  to  take  its  chance  as  such. 
It  must  not  be  disappointed  if  no  blessing  goes  along  with 
it,  and  it  is  not  allowed  to  enjoy  the  rights  and  immuni- 
ties of  evangelical  prudence.  Nothing  is  so  completely 
left  to  itself  and  to  its  own  unassisted  efforts  by  provi- 
dence as  human  prudence,  and  the  reason  is  obvious.  It 
is,  as  far  as  it  goes,  an  attempt  on  man's  part  to  do  with- 
out God,  and  to  walk  alone  in  his  own  wisdom.  Yet  how 
the-  world  admires  this  human  prudence,  and  the  gravity 
of  look  and  the  solemnity  of  manner  and  the  measured- 
ness  of  words  which  are  mostly  its  attendant  gifts.  0 
man  !  you  are  not  truly  prudent,  because  you  are  pomp- 
ous, because  you  do  not  commit  yourself  to  good  people, 
or  because  your  eye  is  grave,  and  your  demeanour  fleeor- 
ous,  and  your  words  flow  as  if  they  were  worth  i  silver 
crown  a-piecej  but  you  are  prudent  because  your  eye  is 
calmly  fixed  on  God,  and  your  heart  whole  with  Him,  and 
your  gait  slow  lest  you  should  leave  Him  behind.  Human 
prudence  will  earn  you  human  respect.  Will  that  bread 
satisfy  you  ?  You  did  not  come  into  the  world  in  order 
that  you  might  go  to  your  grave  an  unoffending  and  un- 
productive man  !  God  wants  something  more  of  you  than 
that  you  should  be  unoffending ;  and  alas !  to  be  unpro- 


192  THE   HUMAN   fePIRJT. 

diictive  is  a  capital  offence  against  Him  and  souls.  Yet 
with  how  many  Christians  is  this  unoffending  non-produc- 
tion their  very  summum  bonum.  "  To  be  ever  safe  is  to 
be  ever  feeble  j"  if  ever  the  spirit  of  evangelical  prudenco 
spoke  plainly,  it  spoke  in  that  golden  apophthegm. 

The  spirit  of  unnecessary  recreations,  the  spirit  of 
mix^d  intentions,  the  spirit  of  dispensations,  the  spirit 
of  little  immortifications  practised  under  the  pretext  that 
we  do  not  mean  them  to  be  habitual,  the  spirit  which 
makes  us  speak  lightly  and  with  a  false  prudence  about 
the  enthusiasm  of  our  first  fervours  in  religion,  all  these 
are  developments  of  the  human  spirit.  And  those  pecu- 
liar developments,  which  show  themselves  most  in  each 
one  of  us,  are  those  which  fit  themselves  most  readily  to 
our  natural  temperament  and  disposition.  It  is  to  this 
quarter,  therefore,  that  we  must  look  most  steadily,  and 
prepare  most  carefully;  for  it  is  there  that  this  "ignoble" 
spirit,  as  Scaramelli  calls  it,  will  invade  us. 

But  the  worst  artifice  of  the  human  spirit  is  when  it 
comes  upon  us  in  the  disguise  of  virtue.  We  have  a 
natural  aptitude  for  some  particular  virtue,  and  we  mis- 
take that  facility  for  grace,  and  so  become  deluded.  The 
worst,  says  Scaramelli,  is  when  this  injurious  spirit  tra- 
vesties some  virtue,  and  makes  us  seem  in  our  own  eyes 
different  from  what  we  really  are.  For,  as  Richard  of  St 
Victor  says,  the  nature  of  man  contains  within  itself  a  natu- 
ral disposition  to  certain  virtues,  in  the  pursuit  of  which 
it  meets  with  fewer  impediments  than  in  the  pursuit  of 
others ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  every  man  has  in  himself 
a  peculiar  inaptitude  and  repugnance  to  the  practice  of 
particular  virtues.  Hence  it  comes  to  pass,  very  often, 
that  a  certain  promptitude  in  doing  good  looks  like  devo 


THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT.  193 

rton,  and  is  not  really  so,  but  arises  from  natural  inclina- 
tion. From  this  doctrine,  that  great  mystic  infers  that 
the  thoughts,  words,  works,  and  affections  of  imperfect 
persons,  ordinarily  proceed  from  this  low  natural  princi- 
ple, and  are  consequently  to  be  attributed  to  the  human 
spirit. 

Scaramelli  proceeds  to  give  cases  in  illustration  of  this 
doctrine.  Beginners  in  devotion,  and  other  imperfect  per- 
sons, are  often  to  be  found,  who  will  run  here  and  there  all 
day  long  in  works  of  mercy,  who  are  all  ingenuity  in  devis- 
ing plans,  and  all  hands  in  carrying  them  into  execution. 
You  would  believe  them  to  be  very  portraits  of  charity  and 
zeal.  Yet  if  you  could  penetrate  into  their  hearts,  you 
would  find  that  all  these  anxieties  and  promptitudes  are 
operations  of  nature,  not  of  grace,  arising  in  great  mea- 
sure, if  not  altogether,  from  an  ardent  and  unquiet  tem- 
per, which  could  not  live  if  it  were  not  always  embar- 
rassed with  a  thousand  occupations.  Another  person  you 
will  find  who  is  quiet  and  peaceable,  and  does  not  even 
resent  an  injury.  It  is  as  if  he  did  not  know  how  to  be 
angry.  You  would  believe  him  to  be  a  very  model  of 
meekness.  Yet  if  you  diligently  scrutinized  his  apparent 
imperturbability,  you  would  see  that  it  was  not  grace 
which  moderated  and  refrained  his  natural  character,  but 
that  he  was  of  a  cold,  heavy,  and  phlegmatic  disposition. 
Again,  you  will  meet  with  persons  who  are  full  of  tender- 
ness in  prayer,  and  continually  bursting  into  tears.  You 
would  suppose  the  manna  of  heaven  was  being  rained 
upor  them  by  angelic  hands.  But  put  these  tears  into 
the  balance  of  the  sanctuary,  and  it  will  soon  be  evident 
that  grace  has  the  least  share  in  them.  They  are  legiti- 
mately claimed  by  a  sanguine,  tender,  and  affectionate 
17  N 


194  THE    HUMAN    SPIRIT. 

nature,  whose  imagination  is  vividly  acted  upon  by  any 
lovely  or  pitiful  object.  So  others  are  to  be  met  with 
who  are  so  attentive  at  prayer,  that  they  can  pass  entire 
hours  in  it  without  distraction.  Your  first  thought  ia 
that  they  have  arrived  at  a  profound  and  habitual  recol- 
lection, and  perhaps  a  high  degree  of  contemplation.  But 
you  will  be  mistaken.  This  attention  may  not  only 
come  from  a  heavenly  light  which  fixes  the  mind  on  a 
divine  object,  but  also  from  a  strong  imagination,  or  a 
profoundly  melancholy  temperament,  and  a  certain  fixed- 
ness which  nails  the  mind  to  the  objects  on  which  it  is 
meditating. 

But  let  us  look  at  ourselves.  On  some  days  we  feel 
an  extraordinary  fervour,  and  a  great  deal  of  spiritual 
consolation ;  and  so  we  believe  ourselves  to  be  full  of  God. 
But,  alas !  our  poor  soul  deceives  itself :  this  great  conso- 
lation is  but  a  work  of  nature.  Some  good  fortune  has 
befallen  us,  or  some  piece  of  happy  news  arrived,  by 
which  our  sensitive  appetite  is  dilated,  and  filled  with 
cheerfulness  and  natural  delectation.  With  this  a  slight 
amount  of  devotion  is  combined,  which  gives  a  tinge  of 
spirituality  to  the  whole  mind.  So  that  the  fervour  is 
nothing  better  than  natural  high  spirits  coloured  with 
devotion.  We  can  soon  test  the  truth  of  this.  Let 
something  happen  to  displease  us,  and  the  consolation  is 
gone  like  lightning,  the  fervour  cooled  in  an  instant,  and 
our  mind  hard  to  be  lifted  to  God.  Alas,  that  it  should 
be  so  easy  to  confound  the  impulses  that  come  from  God 
with  those  that  nature  gives,  and  to  take  the  human  spirit 
for  the  divine !  Poor  we !  how  shall  we  blush  at  the 
tribunal  of  God,  when  we  find  our  actions  which  we 
believed  to  be  the  pure  silver  of  supernatural  virtues,  to 


THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT.  195 

be  only  the  worthless  scoria  of  natural  actions,  or  a  drossy 
compound  of  nature  and  grace,  where  two  thirds  are 
nature,  to  one-third  grace.  So  says  Isaias,  Argentum 
tuum  versum  est  in  scoriam,  vinum  tuum  mixtum  est 
aqua.*  All  these  sweetnesses  which  spring  from  natural 
cheerfulness,  or  quickness  of  perception,  dr  mere  habits 
of  meditation,  explain  why  it  is  that  people  can  feel  so 
much,  advance  so  little,  and  fall  back  so  often. 

The  corrosive  power  of  this  human  spirit  is  shown  by 
the  way  in  which  it  causes  natural  temperament  to  mingle 
with  and  mar  our  good.  Thus  the  zeal  of  a  choleric  man 
becomes  bitter.  A  melancholy  man  ungraceful  in  his 
charity,  and  a  cheerful  man  unrecollected  in  his  prayers. 
But  let  us  listen  to  Scaramelli  commenting  on  that  sweet- 
est and  most  persuasive  of  mystics,  Richard  of  St.  Victor, 
if  St.  Bernard  will  not  be  angry  at  my  calling  him  so. 
It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  human  spirit  mixes  itself 
with  the  works  of  the  most  devout  people,  who  are  in  the 
habit  of  regulating  their  actions  with  no  slight  perfection. 
Although  this  ignoble  spirit  has  not  the  power  utterly  to 
spoil  them,  it  nevertheless  corrupts  them  to  a  certain 
extent,  and  lowers  their  perfection.  Thus  if  a  spiritual 
man  is  of  an  irritable  disposition,  he  experiences  in  his  zeal 
a  certain  bitterness  and  natural  perturbation.  If  he  is 
phlegmatic,  he  is  remiss  in  correcting.  If  he  is  melan- 
choly, his  charity  wants  benignity.  If  he  is  high-spirited, 
his  virtues  are  diluted  by  dissipation.  In  a  word,  as  the 
liquor  from  the  bottle  of  skin  tastes  of  the  skin,  so  the 
virtues  taste  of  the  natural  disposition  of  the  man  in  whom 
they  dwell.  Let  every  man,  therefore,  beware  of  the  spirit 
that  sleeps  in  his  own  bosom. 
*L22. 


196  THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT. 

First  of  all,  this  human  spirit  is  a  most  malignant 
spirit  j  for  under  the  pretence  of  serving  God,  it  is  always 
seeking  itself  and  its  own  natural  satisfactions.  And  in 
the  next  place  it  is  a  most  subtle  spirit,  which  is  always 
gliding  like  smooth  oil  into  all  our  actions.  Huge  mor- 
tification is  required  to  fight  it  well,  and  to  beat  it.  On 
this  matter,  St.  Bernard  quotes  the  saying  of  the  Wise 
Man,  that  he  who  overcomes  himself  is  more  to  be  esteemed 
than  he  who  takes  a  city ;  for  nature  can  take  a  city,  but 
grace  alone  can  take  self.  Let  every  one  reflect,  adds 
our  author,  that  the  greatest  enemy  of  persons  advanced 
in  spirituality  is  neither  the  devil,  nor  the  world,  nor  the 
flesh ;  for  these  three  adversaries  have  either  been  already 
overcome,  or  are  actually  being  combated.  Their  greatest 
enemy  is  the  human  spirit,  which  is  the  ally  of  self-love ) 
and  it  cannot  be  overcome  except  by  an  incessant  mortifi- 
cation of  the  will. 

To  this  authority  I  would  add  that  of  Cardinal  Bona ; 
and  I  will  paraphrase  the  passage  in  which  he  speaks  of 
the  human  spirit,  and  compares  it  with  the  devil.  Man 
has  no  more  pernicious  enemy  than  his  own  spirit;  for 
it  is  full  of  deceits,  artifices,  and  disguises.  It  is  incon- 
stant. It  takes  different  shapes.  It  is  curious,  unquiet, 
the  enemy  of  its  own  repose,  and  a  lover  of  novelty.  The 
imagination  produces  nothing  deformed  or  monstrous, 
with  which  it  will  not  occupy  itself.  There  is  nothing 
unruly,,  vain  and  ridiculous,  which  it  is  not  capable  of 
embracing.  Sometimes  it  appears  altogether  subject  to 
the  Spirit  of  God,  sometimes  enslaved  to  the  spirit  of 
Satan  ;  and  it  never  abides  long  in  one  stay.  As  it  is  full 
of  artifices,  it  assumes  different  forms  with  a  most  sur- 
prising industry  and  a  marvellous  subtilty,  so  as  to  hide 


THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT.  197 

as  Kma  <*)ta7cinence  and  interests  under  the  pretexts  of 
the  glory  of  God  and  of  perfection.  Under  these  captious 
:ippearances  it  is  nevertheless  very  far  indeed  from  seek- 
ing the  glory  of  God  or  loving  perfection.  For  it  seeks 
itself  jn  everything  and  loves  itself  excessively.  It  posi- 
tively adores  itself,  and  turning  aside  from  their  true  end 
fchings  the  most  holy,  by  a  horrible  sacrilege  it  refers 
them  to  itself.  It  is  on  this  account  that  a  man  must 
far  more  distrust  himself,  and  stand  on  his  guard  against 
himself,  than  against  Satan.  For  no  power  external  to 
ourselves  is  able  to  hurt  us,  unless  we  give  him  the  hand 
at  first,  furnish  him  with  arms  when  he  begins  the  atttack, 
and  inwardly  acquiesce  in  his  designs  and  enterprises.  Of 
a  truth  many  enemies  push  us  to  our  ruin.  The  world 
pushes  us  thither:  Satan  pushes  us  :  other  men  push  us; 
but  no  one  pushes  us  so  violently  and  so  dangerously  as 
we  push  ourselves. 

St.  Bernard,  in  his  eighty-fifth  sermon  on  the  Canti- 
cles, writes  as  follows  :  Every  one  is  his  own  enemy. 
Man  urges  and  precipitates  himself  into  evil  in  such  a 
way,  that  if  he  would  only  keep  his  own  hands  from  sui- 
cide, he  need  fear  the  violence  of  no  one  else.  Who  can 
harm  you,  says  St.  Peter,  if  you  have  no  desire  except  to 
do  good  ?  Your  own  consent  to  evil  is  the  only  hand 
which  can  wound  and  kill  you.  If  when  the  devil  sug- 
gests evil  to  you,  or  the  world  invites  you  to  it,  you  with- 
hold your  consent,  no  misfortune  can  befall  you.  The 
devil  may  push  you,  but  he  cannot  throw  you  down,  if 
you  refuse  him  your  consent.  How  plain  it  is,  then,  that 
mark  is  his  own  principal  and  most  dangerous  enemy ! 

I  still  dwell  on  this  all-important  subject,  and  at  the 
risk  of  some  little  repetition,  I  will  ask  you  to  examine 
17* 


198  THE   nUMAN    SPIRIT 

with  ine  the  marks  by  which  Cardinal  Bona  distinguishes 
the  human  spirit,  as  we  have  already  done  those  of  Scava- 
melli  and  Richard  of  St.  Victor. 

First  of  all,  he  says,  there  are  persons  so  touched  w*th 
the  remembrance  of  their  sins,  and  the  meditation  of  the 
Bufferings  of  Christ,  that  they  shed  an  abundance  of  tears, 
and  are  suddenly  filled  with  a  profound  sentiment  of  com- 
punction. This  disposition  leads  them  to  chastise  them- 
selves with  rude  disciplines  and  macerations  of  the  flesh. 
Others  are  touched  in  a  lively  way  by  the  consideration 
of  the  joys  of  heaven,  and  they  all  at  once  go  into  an 
extasy.  Yet  specious  as  these  effects  are,  they  do  not 
come  from  the  Spirit  of  God,  but  from  the  love  of  self, 
from  the  liveliness  and  application  with  which  the  soul 
has  apprehended  its  objects,  and  from  the  natural  change 
which  a  sudden  and  extraordinary  emotion  causes.  This 
is  easily  seen  when  the  impetuosity  and  ardour  of  this 
emotion  is  arrested;  for  then  such  persons  not  only  re- 
lapse into  a  state  of  coldness  and  dryness,  but  evey  fall 
back  into  their  old  passions  and  vices.  On  the  contrary, 
the  true  movements  and  impressions  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
have  nothing  vain  or  unprofitable  for  the  conversion  of 
souls,  but  at  once  effect  great  things.  Hence  we  must 
conclude  that  the  discernment  of  spirits  in  these  matters 
is  very  difficult.  For  we  often  attribute  to  the  Spirit  of 
God,  and  often  also  to  the  spirit  of  the  devil,  that  which 
really  comes  only  from  the  dispositions  and  impression? 
of  nature.  Every  one,  therefore,  ought  carefully  to  exa- 
mine his  heart,  so  that  he  may  not  be  deceived  by  his 
own  spirit,  which  St.  Gregory  calls  a  spirit  of  pride.  Now 
no  one  can  examine  and  discuss  what  passes  in  himself, 
unless  he  prepares  for  God  a  dwelling  in  his  soul   by 


THE    HUMAN    SPIRIT.  199 

chasing  away  every  kind  of  presumption,  and  keeping 
himself  down  in  distrust  of  self,  and  a  sincere  humility 
For,  as  the  holy  pope  excellently  says,  no  one  can  become 
the  abode  of  God's  Spirit,  who  has  not  first  emptied  him- 
self of  his  own  ;  for  the  Spirit  of  God  rests  only  in  humble 
minds,  in  quiet  consciences,  and  in  hearts  which  tremble 
at  His  words. 

Secondly,  it  sometimes  happens  that  we  begin  a  work 
truly  for  God  and  for  His  glory.  But  inasmuch  as 
nature  is  always  secretly  seeking  itself,  insensibly  and 
without  our  perceiving  it  we  forget  the  good  pleasure  of 
God  in  the  progress  of  the  work  which  we  have  begun, 
and  instead  of  regarding  attentively  His  glory  and  His 
will,  we  let  ourselves  go  about  seeking  our  own  conve- 
nience and  satisfaction.  We  find  this  out  in  the  following 
way.  If  God  arrests  the  success  or  completion  of  our 
work  by  any  illness  or  accident,  at  once  we  are  troubled 
and  disquieted ;  and  such  a  sadness  and  perturbation  of 
our  interior  peace  take  possession  of  us,  that  it  is  as 
much  as  ever  we  can  do  to  acquiesce  in  the  Divine  Will. 
There  are  few  persons  who  are  thoroughly  aware  of  the 
malignity  of  that  natural  inclination  which  is  at  the  bot- 
tom of  all  self-seeking,  because  it  is  so  subtle  and  hidden. 
The  very  fact  that  good  is  in  a  -jertain  sense  conformable 
to  our  natural  desires,  causes  us  easily  to  lean  towards 
ourselves.  So  that  even  in  the  intentions  which  seem  to 
us  the  most  pure  and  the  most  according  to  the  will  of 
God,  we  often  seek  ourselves,  drawing  rather  to  what  suits 
our  own  inclination  than  what  is  precisely  the  most  for 
the  glory  of  God. 

A  similar  defect  may  be  observed  in  our  love  of  mor- 
tification, especially  when  it  is  too  ardent.     For  many 


200  THE    HUMAN    SPIRIT. 

mortify  their  senses,  restrain  their  affections,  punish  their 
bodies,  and  abstain  from  pleasures,  with  an  appearanc 
of  virtue  and  zeal,  who  do  all  this  in  reality  to  be  seen 
of  men,  or  to  give  their  own  minds  a  satisfaction  in  which 
self-love  seeks  itself  with  all  the  address  and  artifice  of 
which  it  is  capable.  For  he  who  is  impelled  only  by  the 
instinct  of  grace,  always  desires  to  be  hidden.  Nature 
as  invariably  seeks  to  display  itself.  Yet  even  those  who 
are  really  full  of  supernatural  and  divine  lights  are  not 
exempt  from  this  fault,  in  consequence  of  their  frequent 
insensible  returns  upon  self,  and  the  views  of  self  which 
are  continually  opening  upon  them,  like  landscapes  seen 
through  sudden  openings  in  a  wood,  just  at  times  when 
they  ought  to  be  most  exclusively  occupied  with  God. 

Thirdly,  it  is  very  certain  that  we  have  need  of  the 
grace  of  God  to  pray  and  do  good  works  as  we  ought. 
But  it  is  certain  also  that  we  can  do  virtuous  actions 
from  a  human  motive,  from  self-love,  or  from  servile  fear. 
We  have  moreover  so  little  light  in  ourselves  that  we 
cannot  clearly  distinguish  on  what  principle  we  act,  whe- 
ther it  be  divine  or  human.  In  truth  we  wish  to  raise 
our  heart  to  God,  and  to  disengage  it  from  these  returns 
upon  self  which  are  so  full  of  imperfections.  But  some- 
times this  desire  arises  from  a  subtle  and  secret  interest 
which  we  do  not  perceive.  For  we  may  desire  to  be 
stripped  of  our  self-love  by  another  self-love.  We  can 
desire  and  love  humility  through  pride.  Without  ques- 
tion there  is  in  our  actions  and  interior  dispositions  a  per- 
petual circle  and  incessant  return  of  ourselves  upon  our- 
selves, which  is  almost  imperceptible.  There  always  re- 
mains in  our  heart  a  root  of  self-love  which  is  extremely 
fine,  subtle  and  volatile,  and  which  is  unknown  to  us. 
So  that  we  are  sometimes  very  far  from  guiding  ourselves 


THE   HUMAN   SPIRIT.  201 

by  reasons  altogether  divine  and  motives  purely  disinte- 
rested, at  the  very  moment  when  we  think  we  are  doing 
so  the  most  completely.  Job's  comforters  are  examples 
of  this.  Pure  and  true  love  of  God,  disengaged  from  all 
consideration  of  self,  is  extremely  rare  and  exceedingly 
difficult.  If  men  could  hide  themselves  from  the  eyes 
of  God  and  from  the  eyes  of  the  world,  there  are  very 
few  indeed  who  would  do  good,  and  very  few  who  would 
abstain  from  evil. 

Fourthly,  when  we  tease  and  worry  ourselves,  and  are 
as  it  were  in  despair  about  our  spiritual  progress  after  we 
have  fallen,  all  these  dispositions  come  only  from  a  secret 
self-confidence  and  pride.  For  he  who  is  truly  humble  is 
never  astonished  at  his  falls.  He  knows  that  man  is  so 
feeble  he  can  do  nothing  without  the  assistance  of  God. 
So  that  he  asks  the  divine  aid,  detesting  his  sin  with  a 
heart  at  once  tranquil  and  contrite ;  and  rising  from  his 
fall  with  courage  and  diligence,  he  renews  his  course  with 
fresh  fervour. 

It  is  also  a  mark  of  the  human  spirit  to  attach  itself  to 
its  exercises  and  functions,  however  good  and  holy,  to  such 
a  degree  that  when  superiors  withdraw  us  from  them  and 
apply  us  to  others,  we  indulge  in  murmurs  and  com- 
plaints, and  imagine  that  we  can  never  reach  the  perfec- 
tion befitting  our  state,  as  if  not  to  allow  us  always  to  do 
what  we  like  were  depriving  us  of  the  necessary  means 
to  attain  perfection.  For  the  pain  which  we  feel  under 
these  circumstances  does  not  come  really  from  the  fact 
that  the  things  we  have  been  forced  to  abandon  were  more 
suitable  and  efficacious  for  our  perfection,  but  because  we 
rested  in  them  and  leaned  upon  them  with  a  vicious 
affection,  and  were  complacently  enjoying  therein  our  own 
interest  and  satisfaction  rather  than  the  glory  of   God 


202  THE   HUMAN   SPIRIT. 

Nature  loves  what  is  beautiful,  what  is  good,  what  is  per- 
fect, and  seeks  to  be  pleasing  and  attractive  to  itself  in 
these  things.  Hence  it  conies  to  pass  that  it  hates  every- 
thing that  is  defective  in  its  enterprises  and  designs,  and 
even  in  its  most  spiritual  works :  insomuch  that  these 
defects,  as  has  been  said  before,  torment  and  disquiet  it, 
which  is  a  sign  that  the  love  of  the  good  and  the  perfect, 
however  specious  it  seemed,  was  only  the  produce  of 
nature. 

Fifthly,  the  human  spirit  instigates  men  who  are 
learned  and  desirous  of  becoming  more  so,  to  learn  the 
science  of  divine  and  supernatural  things,  partly  to  give 
them  consideration  from  others,  and  partly  to  satisfy  their 
suriosity.  From  this  eagerness  to  appear  learned  in  high 
matters  proceed  many  rare,  magnificent  and  subtle  dis- 
courses whose  only  fruit  is  to  tickle  the  ears,  not  to  save 
the  souls,  of  others.  Hence  also  those  writings  of  philo- 
sophers who  treat  of  virtue  in  a  pompous  style,  without 
spirit  and  without  life,  filling  the  soul  with  distractions, 
and  dissipating  it  in  an  infinity  of  speculations  and  ideas, 
and  without  the  least  gift  of  inflaming  it  with  love  of 
God.  Works  which  emanate  from  the  natural  capacity 
of  the  mind,  and  in  the  production  of  which  grace  has 
had  no  share,  may  doubtless  contain  an  abundance  of  good 
things,  but  the  fruit  of  them  is  very  small.  They  are 
like  the  apostle's  sounding  brass  and  tinkling  cymbal. 
Whereas  the  words  which  are  animated  by  the  Spirit  of 
God,  although  they  have  nothing  lofty  or  elevated  in 
themselves,  nay  on  the  contrary  are  far  from  anything  of 
the  sort,  bring  forth  in  their  simplicity  abundant  fruit. 
The  human  spirit  on  the  other  hand  is  accustomed  to  dis- 
tribute itself  readily  among  external  things,  aud  to  plume 
itself  on  the  multitude  and  variety  of  its  fine  thought*, 


THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT.  203 

ttnd  this  causes  it  to  swerve  from  the  unity  which  is  so 
desirable  and  so  necessary. 

Sixthly,  in  matters  relating  to  virtue  the  prudence  of 
the  flesh  is  the  inseparable  companion  of  the  human 
spirit.  This  is  the  reason  why  so  many  content  them- 
selves with  mediocrity  in  the  spiritual  life,  without  as- 
piring to  a  perfect  state.  They  measure  everything  by 
themselves  and  by  their  own  weakness,  and  not  by  the 
power  and  efficacy  of  the  grace  of  God.  They  fear  suffer- 
ing and  contempt,  and  ardently  love  riches,  honours  and 
bodily  comforts,  and  to  these  things  they  refer  all  they 
do,  or  say,  or  think.  They  wish  to  make  an  enjoyment 
of  themselves,  as  if  they  were  their  own  ultimate  end; 
and  forming  an  idol  of  themselves,  they  pay  it  the  wor- 
ship which  is  due  to  God.  They  let  their  soul  be 
charmed  by  the  enchantments  of  the  world,  and  sell  it  as 
a  slave  to  the  goods  of  this  present  life. 

As  charity  never  seeks  its  own  interests,  so  blind  self 
love  seeks  no  interests  but  its  own.  And  the  power  of 
this  pernicious  love  over  the  soul  is  at  once  so  malignant 
and  so  penetrating,  that  it  not  only  mingles  with  temporal 
and  earthly  things,  but  even  with  heavenly  and  spiritual 
things,  infecting  with  its  venom  the  love  of  prayer,  the 
usage  of  the  sacraments,  and  the  exercise  of  virtues. 
Even  in  these  things  men  seek  for  praise  and  the  reputa 
tion  of  sanctity,  or  secretly  hope  to  obtain  from  God  cer- 
tain lights  and  spiritual  luxuries  and  joys  of  soul,  which 
only  make  them  soft  and  vain.  This  venom  of  self-love 
taints  even  our  works  of  penance ;  for  frequently  after  a 
fall  a  sinner  is  touched  with  extreme  sorrow,  and  chastises 
his  body  fiercely,  not  because  of  the  offence  against  God, 
but  because  of  the  note  of  infamy  which  he  has  himself 
incurred,  or  through  the  fear  of  losing  his   reputation 


204  THE    HUMAN    SPIRIT. 

amongst  men,  or  at  least  because  he  wishes  to  seem  inno- 
cent in  his  own  eyes.  Yet  as  no  solid  peace  is  to  be 
found  among  the  perishable  things  of  this  life,  there  is  so 
much  inconstancy  in  a  man's  love  of  himself,  that  he  is 
incessantly  changing  his  affections  and  pleasures,  and 
knows  neither  what  he  wishes  nor  what  he  is  doing. 
Sometimes  he  lets  himself  be  rashly  buoyed  up  by  hope ; 
sometimes  he  falls  into  despair;  sometimes  he  breaks  out 
into  a  vain  joy;  sometimes  he  is  out  of  his  depth  in  sad- 
ness. There  is  neither  moderation  nor  measure  in  his  con- 
duct, and  instead  of  being  in  a  mean,  he  is  always  in  ex- 
tremes. He  resembles  a  vessel,  tossed  hither  and  thither 
uncertainly  on  the  waves,  and  at  last  striking  on  a  rock, 
and  becoming  a  miserable  wreck.  For  as  our  Saviour  has 
taught  us,  He  that  loves  his  own  soul  shall  lose  it.  Now 
all  that  is  said  of  the  human  spirit  must  be  referred  to 
this  pernicious  self-love ;  for  it  is  the  exciting  cause  of 
all  the  merely  natural  movements  of  the  soul. 

It  is  plain  that  Scaramelli  and  Bona  drew  from  a  single 
source,  that  that  source  was  Richard  of  St.  Victor,  and  that 
he  spoke  the  spiritual  tradition  of  his  day,  on  a  subject 
about  which,  more  than  almost  any  other  in  the  spiritual 
life,  it  is  needful  to  have  clear  and  decided  views. 

You  may  ask  how  we  are  to  test  this  human  spirit,  and 
how  we  are  to  rectify  it.  I  answer  briefly,  that  we  may 
test  it  in  two  ways  and  rectify  it  in  two  ways.  Our  first 
test  must  be  whether  we  will  or  will  not  allow  ourselves 
to  be  despoiled  of  our  habits  and  practices  by  obedience. 
The  second  is  whether  a  virtue  is  accompanied  in  us  by  its 
congruous  virtues,  which  in  the  order  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
it  would  be,  and  is  not  an  isolated  and  exceptional  thing. 
The  first  means  of  rectifying  it  is  to  redirect  our  intention 
to  the  glory  of  God,  even  when  in  act  we  are  obliged  to 


THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT.  205 

abstain  from  what  we  desire ;  and  the  second  means  is  to 
strive  to  put  grace  by  degrees  in  the  place  of  all  other  prin 
ciples  of  action.     But  more  of  this  in  the  next  chapter. 

We  must  remember  that  to  be  in  a  state  of  grace  and 
to  act  from  a  principle  of  grace  are  two  very  different  things 
To  act  from  a  principle  of  grace  is  to  make  the  pleasure  of 
God  the  sole  motive  of  our  actions,  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
mere  natural  motives ;  and  to  learn  to  know  God  more  and 
more  is  the  means  towards  the  accomplishment  of  this  mag- 
nificent end.  In  such  a  work  as  this,  there  can  be  nc 
rapidity,  no  vehemence,  nothing  sudden,  nothing  revolu- 
tionary. Grace  must  occupy  as  fast  as  it  destroys ;  it  must 
fill  the  void  as  it  creates  it.  The  aborigines  must  waste  in 
the  presence  of  the  white  man  ;  but  it  must  be  a  waste,  not 
an  extermination,  else  the  wild  beasts  will  be  down  upon  the 
settlements.  Some  men  turn  away  from  this  slow  superna- 
tural life,  because  they  weary  of  the  yoke  which  is  never  off 
their  necks;  and  some  because  they  are  persuaded  such  a  life 
is  impossible  to  man.  Yet  the  saints  and  the  saintlike 
lived  it,  and  were  at  large  and  at  ease  in  it.  Why  not  we  ? 
The  state  of  grace  seeks  God  and  all  other  things  in  Him : 
the  principle  of  grace  seeks  God  and  nothing  else  but  Him. 
The  state  of  grace  is  satisfied  with  clearness  from  sin  :  the 
principle  of  grace  is  ever  forcing  its  way  upwards  to  divine 
union.  The  state  of  grace  has  calm  and  storm  alternately  : 
the  principle  of  grace,  if  it  oscillates  at  all,  oscillates  like 
the  needle,  in  fidelity  to  its  centre.  In  the  beginning  it 
is  hard,  yet  with  many  consolations.  Its  progress  is  like 
the  dawning  of  day.  Its  end  is  the  eternal  sunrise.  Why 
are  there  so  few  that  live  it?  Because  so  few  have 
Faith.  "Thy  truths,  0  Lord,  are  diminished  from  among 
the  children  of  men/' 
18 


208  THE    HUMAN   SPIRIT    DEFEATED 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED. 

If  we  are  willing  to  take  the  authority  of  St.  Bernard 
and  Richard  of  St.  Victor,  of  Cardinal  Bona  and  Scara- 
melli,  we  must  suppose  that  the  devil  is  guiltless  of  by 
far  the  greater  part  of  the  sins  of  good  people,  and  that 
even  temptation  is  far  less  exclusively  his  domain  than 
we  are  often  in  the  habit  of  considering  it.  We  must 
not,  however,  push  this  doctrine  too  far,  nor  extend  it 
beyond  the  limits,  surely  wide  enough,  within  which  ap- 
proved writers  confine  it.  Nevertheless,  admitted  even 
so  far,  we  shall  find  if  we  have  hitherto  neglected  it,  that 
it  is  a  doctrine  full  of  practical  results  to  us  in  the 
spiritual  life.  It  gives  us  quite  a  different  idea  of  our 
warfare.  It  throws  a  hew  light  on  scruples.  It  makes 
us  change  our  tactics  against  temptation  ',  and  above  all, 
it  facilitates  the  practices  of  humility  and  self-distrust. 
When  we  refer  everything  to  the  devil,  and  he  is  in  our 
thoughts  and  on  our  lips  at  every  moment,  we  may  be 
sure  that  we  are  as  yet  but  on  the  threshold  of  the 
spiritual  life,  and  have  but  a  shallow  knowledge  either 
of  it  or  of  ourselves.  There  is  hardly  any  point  of 
spirituality  which  has  suffered  more  from  the  customary 
exaggerations  of  men  than  this  one  of  the  devil's  share 
in  our  temptations  antf  our  falls.  Verily,  he  may  truly 
claim  the  lion's  share  with  most  of  men,  and  his  office 
with  holy  people  is  both  constant  and  arduous ;  so  that 
he  may  well  allow  to  his  ally  the  human  spirit  its  own 
unfortunate  and  independent  prerogatives. 


THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED.  207 

But  we  have  not  done  with  the  human  spirit  yot.  In 
this  chapter  I  wish  to  speak  of  one  of  its  most  common 
developments,  and  then  of  the  means  by  which  the  human 
spirit  generally  may  be  brought  into  subjection. 

The  development,  of  which  I  am  about  to  speak,  is 
touchiness  about  our  reputation,  a  disease  most  fatal  to 
the  spiritual  life,  and  yet  one  to  which  spiritual  men  are 
subject  to  a  strange  and  unexpected  degree.  It  is  a 
perfect  cankerworm  to  an  interior  spirit,  and  one  of  the 
most  prolific  causes  of  lukewarmness.  Earth  may  be  an 
unhappy  place ;  but  it  is  not  the  pressure  of  God's  provi- 
dence which  causes  most  of  the  unhappiness,  nor  the 
roarings  of  the  devil  going  about  seeking  whom  he  may 
devour.  It  is  the  human  spirit  operating  in  quarrels, 
coldness,  conceit,  rivalry,  envy,  strife,  jealousies,  misun- 
derstandings, and  an  exaggerated  idea  of  little  slights  and 
wrongs.  Now  the  suffering  of  all  these  things,  and  it  is 
very  acute,  comes  from  fretfulness  about  our  reputation. 
The  excessive  care  of  our  reputation  is  naturally  a  beset- 
ting sin  of  times  whose  spirit  of  publicity  does  really 
make  a  Christian  duty  of  the  preservation  of  our  good 
name. 

But  let  us  consider  what  this  fretfulness  brings  in  its 
train.  It  is  obviously  quite  inconsistent  with  interior 
peace,  which  is  the  soul  of  the  spiritual  life.  For  how 
can  we  be  at  peace  if  we  make  ourselves  responsible  for 
what  is  not  in  our  own  power,  but  escapes  from  us  on  ail 
sides  ?  It  breeds  an  exaggerated  idea  of  our  own  import- 
ance, and  so  destroys  humility.  It  causes  suspiciousness, 
and  so  kills  simplicity.  It  is  a  daily  source  of  irritability, 
and  so  ruins  charity.  It  is  the  crowned  king  of  distrac- 
tions, and  so  draws  off  our  attention  from  God  and  eternal 


208  THE    HUMAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED. 

things.  Yet  see  what  folly  it  is  I  For  if  we  get  what 
we  wish,  what  does  it  amount  to  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten, 
but  being  better  thought  of  than  we  deeerve,  looking 
differently  to  man's  eye  and  to  God's  eye  ?  And  surely 
in  reality  we  are  what  we  are  in  the  judgment  of  God, 
and  we  are  nothing  more.  Thus,  of  all  unreal  satisfac- 
tions the  preservation  for  the  moment  of  our  reputation  is 
at  once  the  most  unfruitful,  the  most  anxious  and  the 
most  precarious.  The  only  decent  pretence  for  such  a 
jealousy  is  that  we  may  not  lose  the  means  of  serving 
God ;  and  to  act  with  a  single  eye  to  His  good  pleasure 
would  be  a  safer  and  more  successful  rule  of  conduct, 
than  to  put  our  reputation  out  to  nurse  with  the  thousand 
tongues  of  men.  Hence  it  was  that  saints,  who  were 
silent  under  all  other  calumnies,  would  not  for  the  most 
part  rest  quiet  under  the  imputation  of  heresy. 

Everything  which  is  corrective  of  the  human  spirit  in 
general,  is  a  remedy  for  this  touchiness  about  our  reputa- 
tion. But  there  are  some  remedies  for  it  as  a  peculiar 
disease  of  itself.  Special  prayer  for  that  end  is  obvious ; 
and  the  same  may  be  said  of  making  it  the  subject  of  our 
particular  examen,  to  find  out  how  much  we  really  offend 
in  this  matter.  But  the  principal  remedy  of  all  is  to 
keep  our  eye  steadily  fixed  on  the  beautiful  and  potent 
example  of  our  Blessed  Lord  in  this  very  respect.  As  to 
His  reputation  as  a  teacher  of  doctrine,  He  was  called  a 
fool,*  and  the  questions  of  Caiaphas  express  the  publio 
opinion  about  Him.  As  to  His  morals,  He  was  called 
seditious,  drunkard,  and  glutton. f  As  to  His  truth,  Ha 
was  esteemed  a  heretic  and  a  Samaritan,!  and  was  openly 
accused  of  witchcraft;  §  and  when  condemned  to  death 

*  John  x.  f  Luke  vii.  %  John  viii.  g  Mark  iu. 


TfiE  UUMAN   SMRlT  DEFEATED.  201 

He  made  no  defence.  The  lives  of  the  saints  hardl) 
seem  wonderful,  when  we  have  well  studied  the  excessive 
humiliations  of  Jesus  with  regard  to  His  reputation. 
Even  to  those  who  are  far  from  saints  it  may  be  given  by 
God  to  know  the  sweetness  of  calumny,  when  we  feeJ 
ourselves  sinking  out  of  man's  sight  into  the  divine  deeps 
of  our  Saviour's  dear  and  awful  Passion. 

We  must  now  proceed  to  examine  the  ways  in  which 
we  are  to  combat  the  human  spirit.  And  here  it  is  of 
importance  that  we  should  put  clearly  before  ourselves 
once  more  the  position  which  we  occupy  in  the  spiritual 
life,  inasmuch  as  the  human  spirit,  though  the  enemy  of 
every  man  born  into  the  world,  is  especially  the  plague 
of  the  spiritual  man.     Who  and  where  are  we  then  ? 

There  are  many  Christians  who  seem  to  go  no  further 
than  a  hatred  of  mortal  sin.  We  are  not  supposed  to 
belong  to  them.  There  are  others  who  strive  conscien- 
tiously to  avoid  venial  sin.  We  are  not  contented  even 
with  this.  We  are  drawn  to  love,  to  love  God  and  to 
love  perfection,  and  to  have  no  reserves  with  God.  As 
to  whether  we  shall  be  saints  or  not,  our  mind  never 
rests  on  the  subject.  We  should  fling  the  thought  off 
from  us  as  a  miserable  temptation.  All  we  see  clearly 
before  us  is  the  resolution  to  have  no  reserves  with  God, 
and  then  to  leave  all  else  to  Him.  This  attraction  grew 
upon  us,  and  now  we  have  little  doubt  it  is  from  God 
For  a  time  we  had  little  or  no  sensible  fear  of  God, 
because  sensible  love  was  so  strong,  but  the  fear  is  return- 
ing, without  disquietude.  We  seldom  thought  of  hell; 
and  the  thought  of  it  hardly  affects  us  now.  We  some- 
times caught  ourselves  making  acts  of  love  when  we 
intended  to  make  acts  of  contrition.  We  were  curiously 
18* 


210  THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED 

Attracted  towards  the  sacraments,  as  if  they  were  magnets, 
and  we  found  it  a  great  trial  to  leave  prayer  for  our  daily 
duties.  Indeed,  we  are  only  beginning  to  find  out  now 
that  the  relative  duties  of  our  station  in  life  are  almost  an 
eighth  sacrament.  We  began  to  care  very  little  for  man's 
judgment  of  us,  and  we  saw  it  was  wise  to  be  really 
obedient  to  our  directors. 

It  was  plain  that,  however  much  of  this  was  natural, 
much  also  was  supernatural.  These  dispositions  amounted 
to  a  vocation,  and  this  vocation  was  a  gift  which  we  might 
compare  with  creation  or  with  baptism,  without  doing 
them  dishonour.  To  correspond  to  it  was  plainly  a 
primary  duty  •  but  we  made  up  our  minds  that  it  would 
cost  us  something  to  do  this.  Paradise  was  not  mean' 
for  cowards.     And  so  we  began. 

And  what  were  our  beginnings  like  ?  All  day  long 
we  had  a  sensible  heat  of  Divine  Love  in  our  hearts.  We 
desired  to  do  great  things,  very  great  things,  foolishly 
great  things,  for  God.  We  believed  we  should  never 
grow  tired  of  spiritual  exercises.  We  were  impatient  to 
be  saints,  and  we  undervalued  the  grace  of  perseverance. 
We  were  continually  wondering  at  the  beauty  of  Jesus, 
and  wanted  to  stand  still  and  look  at  it,  while  we  were 
wearied  and  fatigued  by  our  ordinary  actions  and  relative 
duties.  0  happy  days  !  Days  of  power,  that  passed, 
but  left  their  fruits  behind  them  ! 

Sometimes  we  were  tempted  to  undervalue  them.  But 
we  soon  saw  how  stupid  it  was  to  esteem  lightly  any  of 
God's  gifts,  because  some  day  they  would  hand  us  on  fee 
others.  We  knew  that  these  first  fervours  were  a  spiritual 
childhood;  but  nevertheless  that  God  meant  something 
by  them      We  felt  that  they  were  burning,  felling,  and 


THE    HUMAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED  21\ 

clearing  a  great  deal  of  the  past,  ploughing  he  present, 
and  sowing  for  the  future.  We  knew  they  would  never 
return,  that  the  saints  had  had  them,  and  that  they  were 
a  shelter  from  the  world,  just  when  its  hot  suns  would 
have  withered  our  souls  aud  stricken  them  with  barren- 
ness. We  were  not,  however,  blind  to  the  dangers  of 
these  fervours.  We  knew  it  would  be  dangerous  to  fall 
too  much  in  love  with  sensible  sweetness.  We  might 
become  censorious.  We  might  neglect  the  duties  of  our 
state.  We  might  trust  too  much  to  self,  and  not  be  suffi- 
ciently dependent  upon  grace.  We  might  take  rash  vows, 
or  choose  a  state  of  life,  or  make  some  great  change,  in  a 
beat.  We  knew  also  that  some  day  there  would  be  a 
reaction,  and  we  could  not  tell  what  shape  it  might  take. 
Hence  we  made  some  effort,  but  not  so  much  as  we  might 
have  done,  to  mortify  self-love,  to  be  cheerful  when  we 
fell,  to  be  frightened  of  ourselves,  to  be  open  with  our 
director,  not  to  read  high  books,  or  to  attempt  out-of-the- 
way  methods  of  prayer,  to  avoid  singularity,  not  to  argue 
about  religion,  or  to  talk  of  spirituality,  and  to  have  a 
special  devotion  to  the  silence  of  Jesus. 

So  at  last  we  left  the  nurse's  arms  and  tottered  about 
the  floor,  often  asking  to  be  taken  back  again,  not  seldom 
with  our  little  heads  broken  against  hard  tables  and  in- 
convenient chairs.  Our  strong  good  will  for  perfection 
remained,  though  the  foresight  of  its  difficulties  was  much 
less  confused.  We  began  to  discern  the  difference  between 
lourage  and  presumption,  and  we  saw  that  courage  was 
always  accompanied  with  a  clear  view  and  a  keen  sense 
of  our  own  nothingness.  We  began  to  acquire  some  so- 
lidity in  devotion,  by  sticking  for  a  year  or  more  to  th<i 
acquisition  of  a  single  virtue,  or  the  extirpation  of  a  single 


212  THE   HUMAN   SPIRIT  DEFEATED 

fault.  We  became  more  recollected,  without  knowing  it, 
and  without  seeming  so.  We  grew  modestly  timid  of 
adopting  too  many  practices  and  committing  ourselves  to 
too  many  vocal  prayers,  scapulars,  confraternities,  and  the 
like.  We  saw  the  importance  of  gentleness,  because  the 
practice  of  so  many  other  virtues  is  involved  in  it,  because 
it  is  by  far  the  most  powerful  interior  motive-power,  and 
because  our  Lord  proposes  it  to  us  in  a  special  way.  Yet 
in  practising  this  gentleness,  we  studiously  mortified  natu- 
ral tendernesses,  perceiving  that  they  wound  the  jealousy 
of  God,  and  make  the  heart  effeminate  and  incapable  of 
grace.  There  was  a  day,  it  was  a  day  of  revolution,  when 
we  ceased  making  general  resolutions,  and  only  made  par- 
ticular ones.  We  cultivated  the  spirit  of  faith,  for  it 
dawned  upon  us  that  it  was  a  gift  capable  of  increase  by 
culture.  We  learned  prayer,  as  boys  learn  a  lesson,  and 
never  minded  its  being  for  the  time  actually  a  hot-bed  of 
new  imperfections.  We  were  careful  not  to  make  a  show 
of  being  spiritual.  We  began  to  dislike  our  ruling  passion 
and  instinctively  to  strike  blows  at  it  whenever  we  had  the 
opportunity.  We  were  tolerably  patient  with  the  slowness 
of  our  own  progress,  and  attended  to  our  present  grace. 
We  became  more  and  more  reverently  devoted  to  the  Sa- 
cred Humanity;  and  while  somehow  caring  less  about 
lights,  flowers  and  epithets,  we  were  conscious  of  a  won- 
derfully grave  and  business-like  confidence  in  our  dearest 
Lady. 

Through  all  this  we  felt  great  sensible  sweetness  almost 
continuously,  were  unconscious  of  much  progress,  were 
/Ireadfully  tempted  to  self-trust,  and  were  periodically 
liable  to  spiritual  panics.  Still  the  work  was  all  right  as 
far  as  it  went.     All  it  had  to  do  now  was  to  wear.     This 


THE   HX'MAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED.  213 

IB  the  one  question  in  all  spiritual  things,  How  will  it 
wear  ?  Alas !  the  world  and  cloister !  how  choked  up 
they  both  are  with  worn-out  and  shabby  spiritualities,  and 
never  a  Jew  to  go  round  to  buy  them ! 

But  did  all  this  go  smoothly  ?  Did  we  make  no  mis- 
takes after  all  ?  0  far  from  smoothly,  and  plenty  of  mis- 
takes !  0  so  many  heart-aches,  doubts,  panics,  wearinesses, 
and  waywardnesses !  First  of  all  we  did  not,  though  we 
meant  it,  give  ourselves  up  unreservedly  to  God.  We 
kept  back  some  attachments  that  were  not  sinful,  some 
things  which  we  thought  our  circumstances  admitted  of. 
We  struck  a  balance  between  prudence  and  principle,  and 
forgot  that  concession  and  dispensation  are  for  the  later, 
not  the  earlier  stages,  of  the  spiritual  life.  We  adopted 
fresh  practices  and  strictnesses,  egged  on  by  self-love,  not 
the  simple  view  of  God's  will,  and  we  did  not  remember 
that  we  ought  to  consult  and  investigate  our  purity  of  in- 
tention as  much  in  adopting  a  strictness,  as  in  asking  a 
dispensation.  We  permitted  ourselves  in  little  laxities, 
with  regard  to  the  custody  of  the  senses,  dress,  talking, 
bodily  fatigue,  health,  and  such  matters.  We  gave  way 
to  discouragements,  because  of  our  faults,  our  increased 
self-knowledge,  our  multiplied  temptations,  our  inability 
to  keep  our  own  resolutions,  and  the  subtraction  of  spi- 
ritual sweetness.  Then,  losing  our  hearts  in  this  discou. 
ragement,  we  presently  lost  our  heads,  and  fell  into  ah 
manner  of  scruples,  from  not  distinguishing  between 
temptation  and  consent,  from  secret  tenacity  of  our  own 
opinions,  from  an  excessive  fear  of  God's  justice  and  a 
want  of  confidence  in  His  mercy,  from  a  morbid  desire 
of  avoiding  semblances  of  sin  and  from  an  indiscreet 
austerity,  solitude,  and  sacrifice  Df  recreation.     Heart  and 


214  THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED. 

head  gone,  spirits  went  next.  We  gave  way  to  an  inex- 
plicable sadness,  and  were  sorely  tempted  to  change  our 
lives,  to  discontinue  our  strictnesses,  to  talk  of  our  sor- 
rows, and  to  seek  worldly  consolations.  Had  we  done  any 
one  of  these  four  things,  we  might  have  been  lost.  The 
sadness  did  us  a  great  mischief  as  it  was;  it  drove  us  into 
self-introversion.  We  lost  sight  of  the  grand  Objects  cf 
faith,  and  went  into  an  excess  with  our  examinations  of 
conscience ',  and  then  to  extricate  ourselves  from  this,  we 
plunged  into  too  many  designs,  and  had  too  many  irons 
in  the  fire,  and  were  inordinately  disappointed  when  our 
good  works  did  not  succeed.  There  was  altogether  a  want 
of  childlike  abandonment,  both  of  our  exterior  plans,  and 
of  our  interior  conduct,  into  the  hands  of  Providence. 
We  wished  to  attempt  to  convert  others  before  we  had  a 
right  to  distract  ourselves  from  ourselves.  Even  perfec- 
tion in  the  world  must  have  a  noviciate  of  looking  after 
itself,  as  well  as  perfection  in  monasteries.  However,  we 
determined  to  set  all  right  by  talking  very  disparagingly 
of  ourselves,  and  so  made  the  worst  mistake  of  all,  and 
lost  the  few  ounces  of  humility  which  we  had  so  painfully 
scraped  together.  For  it  turned  out  in  the  end  to  be  con- 
ceit which  made  us  abuse  ourselves.  The  upshot  of  it  all 
was  that  we  allowed  ourselves  to  be  too  much  engrossed 
with  the  metaphysics  of  the  spiritual  life  and  its  exclu- 
sively interior  things,  so  as  to  be  drawn  off  from  a  loving 
attention  to  the  sacraments,  to  Jesus  and  to  God.  How- 
ever, mistakes,  like  other  things,  have  their  day ;  and  we 
can  afford  now  not  only  to  glean  wisdom  from  our  blun- 
ders, but  amusement  also. 

But  we  have  not  done  yet.     The  ugliest  part  is  still  tc 
be  confessed.     These  mistakes  only  concerned  ourselves 


THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED.  215 

There  were  others  which  concerned  our  neighbours.  0 
what  dis-edification  both  given  and  taken !  There  were 
scandals  given  to  others  aiming  at  perfection,  scandals 
taken  from  others  aiming  at  it,  and  scandals  taken  by  the 
world.  How  unlovely  did  we  make  the  work  of  God  ap- 
pear !  We  talked  about  religion,  and  so  illustrated  by 
our  words  the  inconsistency  of  our  practice ;  and  doubt- 
less, as  beginners  always  do,  we  talked  above  our  state, 
and  from  books  rather  than  experience.  We  adopted 
uncommon  devotions,  which  looked  still  less  inviting 
when  exhibited  together  with  our  unhumble,  unmortified, 
unobligi-og  manners.  We  were  impatient  of  contradic- 
tion, weary  with  prayer,  irritable  with  penance,  as  per- 
sons accustomed  to  have  it  all  their  own  way  with  their 
favourite  spiritual  books.  We  envied  the  spiritual  ad- 
vancement of  others,  took  up  with  self-willed  austerities 
which  interfered  with  domestic  arrangements,  unneces- 
sarily provoked  the  opposition  of  relatives,  and  disturbed 
the  comfort  of  others.  The  duties  of  our  station  were 
performed  in  a  precipitate,  perfunctory,  and  ungraceful 
manner.  We  did  not  praise  oth  >rs  with  simplicity,  be- 
cause we  were  dissatisfied  with  them,  and  did  not  realize 
that  God's  leadings  are  numberless,  and  that  others  may 
not  have  our  light.  There  was  a  bitterness  in  our  zeal 
which  was  shown  both  in  words  and  manner,  and  we  were 
often  inclined  to  threaten  men  with  the  judgments  of 
God.  We  were  censorious,  and  given  to  preach  and 
moralize ;  and  if  we  tried  to  avoid  this  fault  we  fell  into 
an  opposite  one,  and  gave  way  too  easily,  when  others 
for  their  own  convenience  wished  us  to  suspend  our 
ttrictnesses 

The  world  treated  us  unjustly  certainly.     Yet  we  did 


216  THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED. 

the  same  in  our  turn  to  other  spiritual  persons.  "We 
misunderstood  them,  when  we  were  complaining  of  being 
misunderstood  ourselves.  We  did  not  remember  in  their 
case  how  many  faults  may  consist  with  the  beginnings 
of  real  piety.  We  ought  to  have  known  from  our  own 
experience  lhat  they  were  in  all  probability  fighting  a 
good  fight  with  those  very  faults  which  were  offending 
us,  or  that  God  was  leaving  them  without  aid  in  those 
particular  respects  for  their  humiliation  and  trial;  and 
when  all  this  ought  to  have  been  in  our  own  minds,  we 
sat  by  and  allowed  worldly  people  ill-naturedly  to  exag. 
gerate  these  faults. 

In  our  own  case  the  harsh  judgments  of  the  world  had 
much  truth  in  them.  They  ought  to  have  taught  us  les- 
sons of  humility.  They  were  probably  far  less  true, 
when  they  were  doing  injustice  to  others.  They  should 
have  been  moreover  warnings  to  us  when  we  were  un- 
consciously becoming  lukewarm.  We  might  have  ac- 
cepted them  as  chastisements  to  us  for  our  judgments  of 
others.  And  at  the  worst  we  should  have  remembered 
Jesus,  and  been  sweet-mannered.  At  all  events  here  we 
are,  having  learned  thus  much  from  it  all,  that  there  are 
two  spirits  which  effectually  hinder  all  advance  in  the 
spiritual  life,  one  is  the  spirit  of  taking  scandal,  and  the 
other  is  the  fidgety  desire  to  give  edification.  For  they 
both  of  them  deny  the  five  essential  principles  of  the 
spiritual  life,  the  law  of  charity  which  believes  all  things, 
the  attention  to  self,  the  temper  of  concealment,  the  care- 
lessness of  men's  judgments,  and  the  practice  of  the 
presence  of  God.  In  these  five  ways  they  destroy  the 
interior  life  by  a  daily  noxious  infusion  of  mixed  pusil- 
lanimity and  pride. 

And  with  all  these  miseries  and  mistakes  we  are  not 


THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED.  217 

shipwrecked  ?  No !  that  could  hardly  be  to  those  who 
love  Mary.  And  now  with  all  this  experience,  and  at  this 
particular  point  of  our  growth  in  holiness,  we  are  face  to 
face  with  this  enemy,  the  human  spirit,  seeking  about  for 
weapons  wherewith  to  combat  it. 

The  first  one  must  be  what  spiritual  writers  often  call 
the  spirit  of  captivity.  Grace  is  the  opposite  of  nature ) 
nature  everywhere  cries  liberty,  grace  cries  captivity;  and 
without  a  resolute  good  will  to  take  ourselves  captive,  we 
shall  never  beat  down  the  human  spirit.  The  spirit  of 
captivity  consists,  as  an  eminent  mystical  writer  tells  us, 
sometimes  in  submission  to  a  written  rule,  parcelling  out 
our  daily  actions  so  far  as  ovir  state  of  life  will  allow, 
sometimes  in  subjection  to  our  director,  even  against  our 
own  judgment,  and  without  feints  or  wiles,  sometimes  in 
conformity  to  the  law  of  Providence,  especially  where  it 
thwarts  and  mortifies  our  natural  liveliness  and  inclina- 
tions, and  sometimes  also  in  submission  to  that  attraction 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  which  is  to  many  of  us  like  a  special 
revelation.  There  is  also  a  captivity  to  frequently  recur- 
ring, though  not  daily  or  obligatory,  practices  of  devotion, 
a  captivity  to  interior  recollection  with  all  its  difficulties, 
trials,  and  repressions  of  natural  activity ;  and  all  mortifi- 
cation is  itself  but  a  shape  of  captivity. 

The  genuine  spirit  of  captivity  may  be  known  by  the 
following  characteristics.  It  must  be  universal,  extending 
its  jurisdiction  even  where  there  is  no  question  of  sin.  It- 
must  jealously  include  little  things  as  well  as  great  ones. 
It  must  be  persevering,  and  not  irregular,  vehement,  or 
intermitting.  It  must  act  even  when  it  has  no  sensible 
sweetness  to  sustain  it.  In  these  cases,  nature  will  often 
get  angry  and  gnash  her  teeth ;  but  this  is  no  real  offence 
19 


218  THE    HUMAN    SPIRIT    DEFEATED. 

of  our  superior  nature  against  the  spirit  of  captivity.  Love 
of  God  must  be  its  motive  and  principle,  even  though  it 
will  not  always  be  sensibly  perceived. 

This  spirit  of  captivity  is  very  needful,  and  commits 
blessed  ravage  on  the  human  spirit.  Yet  it  is  not  with- 
out its  dangers.  Indeed,  if  it  had  no  dangers  it  would 
be  good  for  nothing.  We  must  be  cautious,  therefore, 
of  making  things  obligatory  upon  ourselves,  and  so  giving 
rise  to  scruples;  and  still  more  must  we  be  careful  not  to 
take  every  busy,  ingenious  suggestion  of  further  mortifi- 
cation, which  the  human  spirit  will  incessantly  be  whisper- 
ing, as  a  divine  inspiration.  Captivity  does  not  mean 
that  we  are  always  to  do  what  we  dislike.  That  for  the 
most  part  is  Jansenist  perfection,  the  perfection  of  the 
Theologia  Sanctorum,*  a  perfection  which  is  on  the 
Index,  I  have  spoken  of  it  before.  In  order  to  provide 
against  excesses  we  must  let  our  director  legislate  for  us 
on  the  matter.  If  he  allows  us  in  numerous  daily  petty 
mortifications,  he  must  fix  the  number,  and  give  us  an 
obedience  always  to  interpret  the  doubts  in  our  own  fa- 
vour. When  this  captivity  discourages  us,  or  forms  a 
distraction  at  prayer,  it  is  best  to  neglect  it  totally  for  a 
while,  in  those  particular  matters  in  which  it  most  troubles 
us.  We  shall  find  that  a  sort  of  habit  of  discernment 
will  gradually  grow  up  in  us  about  it.  We  must  pray  for 
that  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  which  is  termed  fortitude, 
St.  Teresa's  favourite  gift  of  the  seven.  Liberty  of  spirit 
consists  in  exemption  from  cares,  from  remorse  and  from 
attachments;  and  captivity  is  the  only  road  to  this  royal 
liberty. 

*  This  famous  book  in  three  folio  volumes  was  written  by  Henry 
of  St.  Ignatius,  a  Carmelite,  published  at  Liege  in  1709,  and  con- 
demned  at  Rome  in  1714. 


THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT    DEFEATED.  219 

The  second  weapon  against  tLe  human  spirit  is  the 
repose  of  the  soul  in  its  present  grace  and  state.  Our 
present  grace  does  not  mean  unconquered  infirmities  in 
which  we  are  to  acquiesce.  But  it  consists  of  the  inevi- 
table circumstances  which  surround  us,  considered  as  the 
ordinance  and  dispensation  of  God.  It  is  the  exact  and 
infallible  Will  of  God  with  regard  to  us.  In  the  present 
grace  God  gives  us  so  much,  and  He  gives  us  no  more; 
He  leads  us  so  far,  and  no  further ;  He  means  this,  and 
He  does  not  mean  that. 

Now  to  repose  on  our  present  grace  is  to  look  at  it,  and 
think  of  it,  and  measure  ourselves  by  it.  It  is  quite 
strange  how  little  men  think  of  the  present  as  compared 
with  the  past  and  the  future.  It  is  the  genius  of  the 
human  spirit,  and  it  subserves  its  interests.  It  dies  in 
this  repose  and  acquiescence  in  the  present;  it  expires 
when  it  is  allowed  to  take  no  thought  for  the  morrow ; 
and  in  spiritual  things  especially  it  abhors  this  mystical 
death.  The  life  of  God  Himself  consists  in  an  unbroken 
complacence  in  the  present;  and  we  must  faintly  imitate 
this  adorable  life  in  our  souls.  Moreover  to  acquiesce  in 
it  is  to  make  it  our  occupation,  no  matter  with  what 
baying  wolves  of  temptation  we  are  beleagured,  or  in  what 
crucible  of  interior  pains  we  are  being  tormented,  or  in 
what  furnace  of  external  persecutions  we  are  being  an- 
nealed. Indeed  in  this  apparent  standing  still  all  manner 
of  progress  is  involved.  For  the  spirit  of  faith  is  fed  by 
it,  the  habits  of  patience  with  God  and  ourselves  are 
formed  and  strengthened,  our  ordinary  actions  are  done  in 
the  most  perfect  way,  heroic  humility  is  admirably  prac- 
tised, and  there  is  in  our  souls  an  incessant  quiet  multipli- 
cation of  the  degrees  of  sanctifying  grace. 


220  THE    HUMAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED. 

If  we  examine  attentively  our  spiritual  troubles,  we 
shall  find  that  almost  all  of  them  arise  from  the  want  of 
this  acquiescence  in  our  present  grace.  Take  no  thought 
for  the  morrow,  is  a  heavenly  maxim  quite  as  applicable 
to  our  interior  conduct  as  to  our  exterior.  Peace  of  heart 
is  gained  by  it ;  for  it  is  the  most  perfect  remedy  for  all 
those  things  which  disturb  interior  peace,  which  are  chiefly 
precipitation,  agitation,  and  outward  disasters.  It  checks 
precipitation,  calms  agitation,  and  often  prevents  or  miti- 
gates the  outward  disasters. 

The  opposite  line  of  conduct  is  the  very  master-piece 
of  the  human  spirit.  It  involves  habitual  opposition  to 
the  divine  will.  It  destroys  interior  peace.  It  causes 
discontent  with  God,  with  others,  with  our  directors,  and 
with  ourselves.  It  is  a  fertile  source  of  spiritual  envy  of 
others.  Under  its  influence  all  things  are  done  ill,  be- 
cause they  are  done  greedily,  unquietly,  and  hurriedly,  as 
if  the  end  of  everything  was  nothing  more  than  to  get  to 
the  next  thing;  so  that  always  being  an  intention  ahead 
of  our  actions,  all  life  is  spoiled.  It  envelopes  us  in  a 
fog  of  languor  and  sadness,  which  take  all  the  nerve  out 
of  our  mortifications ;  and  its  last  stroke  is  to  fill  us  with 
a  gradually  increasing  nausea  of  the  sacraments,  as  over 
praised  recipes.  The  acquiescence  in  our  present  grace, 
on  the  contrary,  seems  to  me  to  have  been  the  grand 
gift  of  the  great  quiet-hearted  St.  Philip ;  and  compared 
with  the  heavenly  treasure  of  its  solidity,  what  were  his 
visions,  extasies,  and  night-long  colloquies  with  his  dear 
Madonna  ? 

It  may  seem  almost  like  a  play  upon  words  to  say  that 
hatred  of  self  is  a  rem(\dy  for  self-love,  which  always  lies 
at  the  bottom  of  the  human  spirit.     So  it  may  be  put  in 


THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED.  221 

another  shape.  As  I  have  said  before,  we  are  always  in 
haste  to  get  out  of  the  Purgative  Way  in  religion,  and  to 
enter  the  Illuminative,  just  as  novices  wish  to  be  out  of 
their  noviciate,  and  long  for  the  graver  responsibilities  of 
jrofession,  because  of  its  greater  liberty.  We  are  espe- 
cially anxious  to  abandon  the  humbling  subjects  of  medi- 
tation, which  beloug  to  that  state,  and  especially  medita- 
tions on  the  four  last  things.  Now,  a  long  continuance 
of  these  very  meditations,  or  at  least  a  frequent  recurrence 
to  them,  is  a  great  means  of  combating  the  human  spirit. 
St.  Francis  Borgia  used  to  meditate  as  much  as  two  hours 
daily  on  his  own  nothingness.  Hence  his  characteristic 
virtue  was  humility.  He  was  probably  refreshed  by 
supernatural  lights,  which  enabled  him  to  spend  so  long 
a  time  profitably  on  that  subject.  With  him  it  was  most 
likely  contemplation  rather  than  meditation.  Still,  it  is 
an  example  to  "s.  A  mind  well  exercised  in  the  conside- 
ration of  its  own  nothingness,  will  be  proof  against  many 
au  arrow  shot  against  it  by  the  human  spirit.  It  is  not 
easy  to  hate  ourselves ;  but  until  we  come  to  do  so  with  a 
good  hearty  hatred,  we  shall  never  consent  to  mortify  our- 
selves, and  so  never  be  capable  of  union  with  God.  This 
hatred  is,  by  tho  grace  of  God,  the  inevitable  product  of 
deep  reflection  on  our  own  nothingness. 

The  thoughts  among  which  we  should  live  familiarly, 
are  such  as  these.  What  are  we  in  the  order  of  nature  ? 
Simply  created  out  of  nothing,  and  so  with  no  rights,  but 
such  as  come  from  God's  gratuitous  covenant.  To  the 
degradation  of  our  nothingness,  we  have  added  the  guilt 
of  rebellion.  We  are  inferior  to  the  angels,  and  akin  to 
the  beasts :  mutable,  and  almost  without  self-control ; 
subject  to  sufferings  and  indignities;  helpless  in  childhood, 
19* 


222  THE    HUMAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED. 

and  dishonourable  in  old  age;  cur  bodies  tending  to  cor 
ruption,  and  our  souls  gravitating  heavily  to  sin.  Wh:it 
are  we  in  the  order  of  grace?  Without  it  we  are  outcasts 
and  exiles.  Sanctifying  place  is  altogether  foreign  to  us, 
and  from  God ;  and  actual  grace  must  be  superadded  to 
habitual,  and  even  then  our  will  can  destroy  its  efficacy. 
And  in  our  best  estate,  self  mingles  with  and  mars  our 
holiest  actions.  We  have  senses,  but  it  is  as  much  as  we 
can  do  to  keep  custody  over  them )  they  are  sources  of 
temptation  and  sin,  which  often  tyrannically  overbear  the 
soul  Our  understanding  is  blind  and  stupid,  imprudent, 
conceited,  and  in  a  great  measure  dependent  on  our  bodily 
health.  Our  affections  are  insubordinate  and  wild,  and 
their  tastes  ignoble,  continually  fastening  on  low  objects. 
If  we  could  only  come  to  judge  ourselves  by  the  same 
standard  according  to  which  we  judge  others,  how  royally 
should  we  hate  ourselves !  Ah  !  if  we  only  demanded, 
and  as  severely  exacted,  from  ourselves,  wbat  we  exact 
from  others,  the  same  unselfishness  all  day  and  night,  the 
same  promptitude  in  generous  deeds,  the  same  high  prin- 
ciples, the  same  pure  motives  !  Alas !  if  we  could  only 
look  upon  ourselves  from  without,  and  at  the  same  time 
have  the  knowledge  of  ourselves  which  we  possess  from 
within,  we  should  soon  be  saints ! 

If  we  compare  ourselves  with  a  beast,  the  latter  is  no 
spot  in  God's  creation.  It  is  more  patient  than  we  are, 
and  apparently  has  more  self-control  in  pain.  It  corres- 
ponds better  to  the  end  of  its  creation  than  we  do  to  ours. 
If  me  look  at  ourselves  by  the  side  of  a  fallen  angel,  he 
fell  but  once,  and  had  no  room  given  him  for  repentance. 
Many  classes  of  sins  are  unknown  to  him,  such  as  glut- 
tony and  drunkenness,  because  of  the  spirituality  of  his 


THE   HUMAN    SPIRIT   DEFEATED.  223 

nature  He  pines  after  God,  even  in  his  rebellion.  He 
is  without  hope,  and  so  has  more  show  of  right  to  be 
wicked.  God  does  not  love  him,  and  the  hapless  creature 
knows  that  He  never  will  love  him. 

But  by  God's  grace  we  are  kept  from  great  wickedness, 
and  these  comparisons  do  not  move  us.  Then  let  us 
measure  ourselves  by  the  side  of  holy  men,  by  their  inno- 
cence or  heroic  penance,  by  their  generous  zeal  and  ardu- 
ous labours  for  God  and  souls,  by  their  self-sacrifice  and 
perseverance.  Or  let  us  take  the  angels,  and  think  of 
their  strength,  their  beauty,  their  understanding,  their 
power,  the  wonderful ness  and  purity  of  their  spiritual 
nature  and  its  gifts.  Cast  an  eye  on  our  Blessed  Lady, 
who  is  a  mere  creature,  and  sum  up  her  dignity,  her 
Banctity,  her  prerogatives,  her  sinlessness,  her  present 
empire.  Kneel  before  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  Jesus, 
and  scrutinize  its  definite  grace,  its  merits,  its  beauty,  its 
elevation,  its  Body,  its  Soul,  its  Union  with  the  Word, 
and  how  it  is  the  apex  of  the  universe,  the  culminating 
point  of  all  creation.  Or  go  walk  by  the  shore  of  that 
unresounding  sea,  the  Immense  and  Incomprehensible 
God,  cast  a  bewildered  glance  over  the  awful  infinite 
abyss  of  His  Perfections,  known  and  named,  or  unknown 
and  unnamed.  And  then,  poor  heart!  think  of  what  thou 
hast  been,  from  youth  upward,  in  thought,  feeling,  and 
act,  think  of  what  thou  art  at  this  moment  to  the  eye  of 
God,  even  as  thou  knowest  thyself,  (and  how  little  dost 
thou  know !)  and  think  of  what  at  best  thou  art  likel y  to  be ! 

We  could  wrestle  better  with  the  human  spirit,  if  we 
could  keep  ourselves  down  more.  We  sun  ourselves  iu 
the  brightness  of  high  things,  and  this  tells  upon  us  like 
the  enervating  climate  of  southern  latitudes  upon  the 
children  of  the  north 


224  SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

SPIRITUAL    IDLENESS. 

IF,  of  all  graces,  that  of  perseverance  is  the  most  pre- 
vious, because  it  is  the  one  which  makes  all  the  others  of 
lasting  value,  certainly  among  the  vices  which  beset  the 
devout  life,  spiritual  idleness  is  one  of  the  chief;  for  it  is 
the  contradictory  of  perseverance.  Yet  I  doubt  whether, 
practically,  we  regard  it  with  the  fear  which  it  deserves. 
All  the  three  dispositions  of  our  normal  state,  fatigue 
especially,  are  desolated  by  it.  Struggle  is  tempted  to 
give  way  to  laziness,  and  to  take  recreation  away  from 
Christ.  Fatigue  is  sorely  drawn  in  its  aching  lassitude 
to  fall  off  from  dry  interior  faith,  and  to  seek  consolation 
in  creatures,  a  step  almost  as  fatal  as  going  to  sleep  in  the 
snow.  And  rest  murmurs  when  the  trumpet  sounds  to 
renew  the  fight,  and  would  fain  prolong  itself  by  natural 
means  when  supernatural  means  have  ceased. 

I  suppose  it  may  be  said  that  every  man  is  an  idle 
man.  Did  any  one  ever  see  a  man  who  did  not  naturally 
gravitate  to  idleness,  unless  perchance  he  had  a  heart- 
complaint?  Nay,  so  natural  is  it,  that  very  idle  men 
plead  its  very  naturalness  as  a  proof  that  it  is  almost 
irresistible.  No  man  does  hard  work  naturally.  He 
must  be  driven  to  it,  no  matter  whether  it  be  by  the  love 
of  money,  or  the  fear  of  hell.  Idleness  of  its  own  nature 
is  sweet,  sweeter  than  the  brightest  gift  the  gay  world  can 
give.     But  spiritual  men  have  a  special  inclination  to  be 


SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS.  225 

idle,  which  they  do  not  always  sufficiently  consider.  No- 
thing is  more  rare  in  the  Church  than  a  irue  contempla- 
tive vocation.  Consequently,  it  is  almost  impossible  for 
the  generality  of  devout  persons  to  spend  their  whole 
time  in  direct  acts  of  the  virtue  of  religion,  and  the  cul- 
tivation of  interior  motives  and  dispositions.  Then,  on 
the  other  hand,  they  conceive,  not  always  judiciously,  that 
their  former  habits  of  recreation,  and  their  old  amuse- 
ments, are  to  be  altogether  eschewed.  So  that  their  piety 
creates  a  sort  of  void  in  them,  and  gives  them  nothing  to 
fill  it  up  with.  This  is  one  great  reason  why  those  who 
have  no  regular  profession,  or  adequate  domestic  occupa- 
tion, should  engage  themselves  in  some  external  work  of 
zeal  and  mercy.  However,  if  this  theory  to  explain  the 
phenomenon  be  not  true,  the  fact  is  undeniable,  and  th( 
world  has  long  ill-naturedly  pointed  to  it,  that  religiouu 
people,  as  a  class,  are  uncommonly  idle. 

As  this  idleness  is  an  effectual  bar  to  progress,  it  is 
important  that  we  should  examine  the  matter  narrowly ; 
and  if  we  do  so,  we  shall  find  that  there  are  seven  deve- 
lopements  of  this  spiritual  idleness,  about  each  of  which 
something  shall  be  said. 

The  first  of  them  is  what  is  usually  called  dissipation 
It  is  easy  to  describe,  but  not  easy  to  define.  It  is  a  sir. 
without  a  body.  It  can  make  a  body  of  anything  and 
animate  it.  It  works  quietly,  and  hardly  allows  itself  to 
be  felt.  Indeed  one  of  its  most  dangerous  characteristics 
is  that  a  person  is  rarely  aware,  at  the  time,  that  he  is 
guilty  of  dissipation.  Its  effects  upon  our  devotion  are 
quite  disproportioned  to  the  insignificance  of  its  appear- 
ance. It  can  destroy  in  a  few  hours  the  hard-earned 
graces  of  months,  or  the  fruit  of  a  whole  retreat;  and  the 


226  SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS 

time  immediately  following  a  retreat  is  one  of  its  favourite 
and  chosen  seasons.  Let  us  see  in  what  it  consists. 
Every  one  knows  after  he  has  been  dissipated,  that  such 
has  been  the  case ;  but  he  does  not  always  see  in  what 
his  dissipation  has  consisted.  The  desolation  of  his  soul 
is  a  proof  to  him  that  something  has  been  wrong;  but 
he  cannot  always  give  the  wrong  its  name. 

Dissipation  consists,  first  of  all,  in  putting  things  off 
beyond  their  proper  times.  So  that  one  duty  treads  upon 
the  heels  of  another,  and  all  duties  are  felt  as  irksome 
obligations,  a  yoke  beneath  which  we  fret  and  lose  our 
peace.  In  most  cases  the  consequence  of  this  is,  that 
we  have  no  time  to  do  the  work  as  it  ought  to  be 
done.  It  is  therefore  done  precipitately,  with  natural 
eagerness,  with  a  greater  desire  to  get  it  simply  done 
than  to  do  it  well,  and  with  very  little  thought  of  God 
throughout.  The  French  statesman's  maxim,  Never 
do  to-day  what  you  can  put  ofF  till  to-morrow,  admira- 
ble as  it  is  for  the  prudent  discharge  of  worldly  duties, 
can  seldom  be  safely  practised  in  the  spiritual  life. 
Neither  would  anything  but  confusion  come  of  Lord  Nel- 
son's opposite  rule,  that  a  man  should  always  be  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  before  his  time.  The  great  thing  is  to  do  each 
duty  as  it  comes,  quietly,  perseveringly  and  with  our  eyes 
fixed  on  God.  Without  our  having  any  set  rule  to  ob- 
serve, daily  life  has  a  tendency  to  settle  itself  into  a  groove, 
and  thus  each  duty  has  a  time  which  may  be  called  its 
right  time ;  and  by  observing  this  we  shall  avoid,  on  the 
one  hand,  being  pressed  by  an  accumulation  of  duties  in 
arrear,  and  on  the  other  being  dissipated  by  having  gaps 
of  time  not  filled  up  An  unoccupied  man  can  neithei 
be  a  happy  man  nor  a  spiritual  man 


SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS.  297 

Another  symptom  of  dissipation  consists  in  overtalking 
and  prolonging  immoderately  visits  of  civility.  By  this 
is  not  meant  that  there  is  any  point  at  which  a  person  is 
bound  to  stop,  or  where  anything  positively  wrong  begins; 
but  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  moderation  in  those  mat- 
ters, which  is  guided  in  each  case  by  circumstances. 
Again,  indulging  in  idle  and  indolent  postures  of  body 
when  we  are  alone,  tends  to  dissipate  the  mind,  and 
weakens  the  hold  which  the  presence  of  God  ought  to 
have  upon  us.  We  must  also  be  upon  our  guard  against 
a  habit,  which  is  far  from  uncommon,  of  being  always 
about  to  begin  some  occupation,  and  yet  not  beginning  it. 
This  wears  and  wastes  our  moral  strength,  and  causes  us 
to  fritter  our  lives  away  in  sections,  being  idle  to-day  be- 
cause we  have  something  in  view  to-morrow,  which  cannot 
be  begun  until  to-morrow.  The  same  dissipating  result 
will  be  produced,  if  we  burden  ourselves  with  too  many 
vocal  prayers  and  external  observances  of  devotion.  We 
shall  always  be  in  a  hurry,  and  under  a  sense  of  pressure, 
which  will  soon  lead  to  disgust  and  low  spirits. 

A  want  of  jealousy  of  ourselves  at  times  and  places  of 
recreation  is  another  source  of  dissipation.  Recreation  is 
itself  a  dangerous  thing;  because  in  one  sense  it  ought  to 
distract  and  dissipate  us,  if  it  is  to  do  us  any  good ;  and 
of  such  consequence  is  this  distraction,  that  recreation  well 
managed  is  one  of  the  greatest  powers  of  the  spiritual  life, 
a  fountain  of  excellent  cheerfulness,  and  a  powerful  enemy 
of  sins  of  thought.  But  I  must  speak  of  this  hereafter. 
All  that  need  be  said  here  is  that  a  want  of  jealousy  over 
ourselves  at  recreation  is  a  cause  of  dissipation.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  building  castles  in  the  air;  and  of  that 
lax  spirit  which  is  always  desiring  dispensations  from  little 
obligations  and  self-imposed  rules.      I  say  self-imposed 


<J28  SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS. 

rules;  for  why  impose  them  if  they  are  not  to  be  kept,  and 
how  can  they  be  kept  unless  we  be  more  jealous  of  seeking 
a  dispensation  when  we  ourselves  are  the  dispensing  power 
than  when  it  must  be  sought  from  some  one  else  ? 

The  consequences  of  this  dissipation  are  unfortunately 
oo  well  known  to  all  of  us  to  require  any  long  descrip- 
tion. First  comes  self-dissatisfaction  which  is  the  canker- 
worm  of  all  devotion.  Then  captiousness  and  self-defence, 
after  which  we  feel  that  the  power  to  pray  is  gone  from 
us,  as  our  strength  goes  from  us  in  an  illness.  These  are 
followed  by  positive  illtemper,  in  an  hour  of  which  we 
lose  weeks  of  struggle  and  progress.  With  this  is  coupled 
a  morbid  inclination  to  judge  and  criticise  others.  Or  if 
we  have  grace  to  keep  down  these  more  gross  evils,  our 
dissipation  shows  its  power  in  multiplying  our  distractions 
at  prayer,  in  making  us  peevish  after  communion,  or  re- 
served with  our  director,  or  in  drawing  us  into  an  effemi- 
nate way  of  performing  our  duiies,  and  giving  us  a  great 
distaste  for  penance. 

The  second  development  of  spiritual  idleness  is  sadness 
and  low-spirits.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  spiritual 
persons  to  speak  of  sadness  as  if  it  were  some  dignified 
interior  trial,  or  as  if  it  were  something  to  call  out  puie 
sympathy,  kindness,  and  commiseration.  Whereas  in  by 
far  the  greater  number  of  instances  it  is  true  to  say  that 
no  state  of  the  spiritual  life  represents  so  much  venial  sin 
and  unworthy  imperfection  as  this  very  sadness.  It  is 
not  humility,  for  it  makes  us  querulous  rather  than  patient. 
tt  is  not  repentance,  for  it  is  rather  vexation  with  self  than 
jorrow  for  the  offence  against  God.  The  soul  of  sadness 
is  self-love.  We  are  sad  because  we  are  weary  of  well 
doing  and  of  strict  living.     The  great  secret  of  our  cheer 


SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS.  229 

fulness  was  our  anxiety  and  diligence  to  avoid  venial  sins, 
and  our  ingenious  industry  to  root  them  out.  We  have 
now  become  negligent  on  that  very  point,  and  therefore 
we  are  sad.  If  indeed  we  still  try,  as  much  as  we  did 
before,  to  avoid  actual  venial  sins,  we  have  lost  the  courage 
to  keep  ourselves  away  from  many  pleasant  times  and 
places  which  we  know  to  be  to  us  occasions  of  venial  sin. 
We  content  ourselves  with  an  indistinct  self-confidence 
that  we  shall  not  fall ;  and  at  once  the  light  of  God's 
Countenance  becomes  indistinct  also,  and  the  fountain  of 
inward  joy  ceases  to  flow.  We  desire  to  be  praised,  and 
are  unhappy  if  no  notice  is  taken  of  what  we  do.  We 
seek  publicity  as  something  which  will  console,  rest,  and 
satisfy  us.  We  want  those  we  love  to  know  what  we  are 
feeling  and  suffering,  or  what  we  are  doing  and  planning. 
The  world  is  our  sunbeam  and  we  come  out  to  bask  in  it 
What  wonder  we  are  sad  ? 

How  many  are  there  whose  real  end  in  the  spiritual 
life  is  self-improvement  rather  than  God,  and  how  little 
they  suspect  it !  Now  perhaps  it  is  true  to  say  that  we 
never  attain  in  the  way  of  self-improvement  a  point  which 
seems  to  us  quite  easy  of  attainment.  We  are  always 
below  the  mark  we  aimed  at.  Here  again  is  another 
source  of  sadness.  But  whatever  way  we  look  at  this 
miserable  disposition  we  shall  find  that  the  secret  fountain 
of  all  its  phases  is  the  want  of  mortification,  and  more 
especially  of  external  mortification.  In  a  word,  who  ever 
found  any  spiritual  sadness  in  men  trying  to  be  good, 
which  did  not  come  either  from  a  want  of  humility,  or 
from  habitually  acting  without  distinct  reference  to  God  ? 

But  the  consequences  of  sadness  are  of  the  most  fear- 
ful description.  Nothing  gives  the  devil  so  much  power 
20 


280  SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS. 

over  us.  Mortal  sin  itself  very  often  gives  him  less  pur- 
chase over  our  souls.  It  blunts  the  sacraments,  and  de- 
stroys their  influence  upon  us.  It  turns  all  sweet  things 
bitter,  and  makes  even  the  remedies  of  the  spiritual  life 
act  as  if  they  were  poisons.  Under  its  morbid  action  we 
become  so  tender  that  we  are  unable  to  bear  pain,  and 
tremble  at  the  very  idea  of  bodily  mortification.  The 
courage  which  is  so  necessary  for  growth  in  holiness  oozes 
out  of  us,  and  we  become  timid  and  passive  where  we 
ought  to  be  bold  and  venturesome.  The  vision  of  God 
is  clouded  in  our  soul,  and  every  day  the  fit  of  sadness 
lasts  it  is  carrying  us  further  and  further  out  of  our 
depth,  and  beyond  the  reach  of  rational  consolation.  It 
seems  a  strong  thing  to  say,  but  it  is  in  reality  no  exag- 
geration, that  spiritual  sadness  is  a  tendency  towards  the 
state  of  Cain  and  Judas.  The  impenitence  of  both  took 
root  in  a  sadness,  which  came  out  of  a  want  of  humility, 
and  that  want  was  itself  the  fruit  of  acting  with  a  view 
to  self  rather  than  a  view  to  God. 

Above  all  things  we  must  be  careful  not  to  let  sadness 
force  us  away  from  our  regular  communions,  or  from  any 
of  the  strictnesses  we  may  practise.  We  must  be  all  the 
more  faithful  to  them  because  we  are  sad ;  and  we  must 
beware  of  adopting  any  change  while  the  cloud  is  on  us. 
Exactness  in  little  duties  is  a  wonderful  source  of  cheer- 
fulness; and  set  mortifications,  few  and  not  severe,  but 
quietly  persevered  in,  will  cast  out  the  evil  spirit.  We 
must  look  out  for  opportunities  of  giving  way  to  others ; 
for  that  brings  with  it  softness  of  heart  and  a  spirit  of 
prayer.  We  must  make  the  use  of  our  time  a  subject 
?f  particular  examination  of  conscience,  and  always  have 
on  hand  some  standing  book  or  occupation  with  which  to 


SPIRITUAL    IDLENESS.  231 

fill  up  gaps  of  vacant  time.  We  must  never  omit  our 
devotions  to  our  Blessed  Lady,  whom  the  Church  so 
sweetly  calls  "the  cause  of  our  joy;"  and  we  must  con- 
sider that  day  lost  on  which  we  have  not  thus  done  homage 
to  her.  Finally,  we  must  regard,  not  the  act  only  which 
we  do,  but  the  time  which  obedience  has  fixed  for  doing 
it,  whether  it  be  the  obedience  of  self,  rule,  family,  or 
director;  for  the  marvellous  virtue  of  obedience  resides 
often  more  in  the  time  and  manner  of  an  act,  than  in  the 
act  itself,  just  as  the  spiritual  life  itself  consists  not  so 
much  in  an  assemblage  of  certain  actions,  as  in  the  way 
in  which  we  do  all  our  actions. 

To  these  two  idlenesses,  dissipation  and  sadness,  we 
must  add  a  third ;  it  is  a  kind  of  sloth,  or  general  languor, 
which  it  is  very  hard  to  describe ;  but  the  main  features 
of  which  every  one  will  recognize.  Some  time  has  passed 
since  we  had  a  clear  view  of  ourselves.  We  have  got 
out  of  sight  of  ourselves,  and  are  journeying  on  like  men 
driving  in  the  dark.  Then  something  occurs  which 
wakes  us  up  to  a  consciousness  of  our  position.  We  find 
that  we  are  continually  making  resolutions,  and  as  con- 
tinually breaking  them.  They  form,  as  usual,  part  of 
our  morning  prayer,  and  in  an  hour  or  two  they  have 
passed  from  our  minds  as  though  we  had  never  made 
them.  Even  if  we  reflect  upon  them,  and  make  some 
little  effort  to  put  them  into  execution,  we  find  that  they 
are  utterly  nerveless,  and  without  power  or  animation. 
We  do  not  exactly  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the  inspirations 
which  we  are  receiving  at  ail  hours,  but  we  are  dilatory 
in  carrying  them  out,  and  so  the  time  for  them  passes 
by,  and  another  duty  comes  in  the  way,  and  it  is  too  late 


232  SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS. 

So  that  on  the  whole  we  hardly  correspond  to  any  of  oui 
inspirations 

All  this  is  bad  enough.  But  there  is  added  to  it  a 
physical  feeling  of  incapacity  to  make  any  exertion.  It 
seems  to  us  as  if  any  effort  was  out  of  the  question ;  and 
what  is  in  truth  merely  a  moral  malady  puts  on  all  the 
semblance  and  feeling  of  a  bodily  indisposition,  and  soon 
causes  one.  We  then  begin  to  make  light  of  serious 
twinges  of  conscience,  and  we  are  peevish  and  impatient 
of  any  warning  or  admonition,  or  of  any  attempt  to 
bring  spiritual  matters  before  us.  Everything  that  every 
body  does  seems  inopportune,  and  out  of  good  taste. 
Without  rhyme  or  reason  we  have  an  almost  universal 
nausea  of  men  and  things,  and  we  give  in  to  "  the  spirit 
of  causeless  irritation"  which  characterizes  the  paralytic, 
as  Sir  Walter  Scott  tells  us  of  Chrystal  Croftangry.  It 
is  as  if  life  were  worn  out  and  we  had  got  to  the  end  of 
things,  as  if  we  had  worked  our  way  through  the  upper 
coats  of  existence  down  to  what  Bossuet  calls  "  the  in- 
exorable ennui  which  forms  the  basis  of  human  life." 
In  this  state  we  are  not  only  distracted  at  prayer,  but 
slovenly  also )  and  even  the  sacraments  we  treat  with  a 
kind  of  lazy  irreverence  and  formal  familiarity,  which  it 
is  frightening  to  think  of.  In  fact  our  state  is  a  kind  of 
passive  possession  of  the  spirit  of  disgust  and  sloth ;  it 
is  as  if  we  had  lost  the  power  of  being  serious,  and  were 
numb,  or  in  a  trance,  so  far  as  spiritual  things  are  con- 
cerned. It  is  this  state  to  which  dissipation  is  always 
tending;  and  if  we  are  so  unfortunate  as  not  to  have 
checked  it  in  its  earlier  stages,  but  find  ourselves  actually 
under  this  oppression,  we  must  rouse  ourselves  and  act 
with  as  much  vigour  as  if  we  had  fallen  into  mortal  sin 


SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS.  233 

A  fourth  kind  of  spiritual  idleness  may  be  called  use- 
less industry,  which  is  a  great  temptation  to  active-minded 
men ;  for,  as  I  said  before,  idleness  is  natural  and  plea- 
sant to  all  temperaments,  but  has  different  phases  for 
different  characters.  There  is  nothing  in  recreation  which 
hinders  our  uniting  ourselves  to  God  j  but  there  are  a 
variety  of  unmeritorious  occupations  in  which  we  can 
fritter  away  our  time,  and  in  which  it  is  almost  impossible 
for  us  to  have  any  deliberate  or  distinct  intention  to  glo- 
rify God.  It  is  difficult  to  specify,  but  every  one  knows 
that  recreating  and  idling  are  very  different  things,  and 
that  idling  much  more  often  consists  in  doing  useless  or 
childish  things,  than  in  doing  nothing  at  all.  There  are 
many  kinds  of  reading,  which  are  not  wrong  in  them- 
selves, but  which  for  some  reasons  in  our  own  particular 
case  will  dissipate  us,  or  prepare  distractions  for  our  me- 
ditation, or  will  feed  future  temptations,  and  supply  them 
with  images  ready  at  hand,  or  will  be  dangerous  to  us 
because  they  will  inordinately  engross  us ;  and  in  which, 
in  spite  of  our  intellectual  conviction  that  they  are  not 
wrong,  we  have  an  interior  reproach,  which,  if  we  were  in 
a  right  state  of  mind,  would  act  as  a  prohibition.  So  in 
these  days  of  cheap  and  rapid  postage  we  ought  to  be 
more  jealous  of  our  correspondence  than  we  are.  Is  it 
too  much  to  say  that  every  letter  we  write  is  more  or 
less  a  drain  upon  our  spirituality  ?  And  if  this  be  so, 
ought  we  not  to  make  a  rule  to  ourselves  against  unne- 
cessary letter-writing,  against  the  writing  of  any  letter 
which  either  business  or  social  propriety  or  affection  does 
not  render  practically  unavoidable?  Time  is  precious,  a^d 
we  have  little  of  it,  and  how  much  if?  spent  in  writing 
letters,  and  how  many  pretend  that  all  their  letter- writing 
20* 


234  SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS. 

is  safe  because  it  is,  they  say,  a  veritable  mortification  I 
Attachments  are  multiplied  and  strengthened  by  corre- 
spondence, while  it  increases  our  objects  .of  anxiety,  mag- 
nifies our  reasons  for  being  nervous  and  restless,  and  catera 
for  that  idolatry  of  family  ties  which  nowadays  wage;? 
Buch  a  vigorous  warfare  against  the  manliness  of  Christian 
sanctity. 

Letter-writiog  tends  also  to  increase  the  natural  exag- 
geration of  our  character.  We  express  ourselves  in  an 
exaggerated  manner,  and  our  style  at  last  transfers  its 
exaggeration  to  our  feelings.  We  thus  form  a  false  esti- 
mate of  things;  and  are  greatly  troubled  about  small 
events,  or  highly  excited  about  low  expectations.  What 
is  the  family  circle  generally,  but  ineffable  trifles  seen 
through  a  hugely  magnifying  medium  ?  It  reminds  us  at 
every  turn  of  Wordsworth's  real  sufferer  in  the  workhouse, 
when  she  says, 

I  heard  my  neighbours  in  their  beds  complain 
Of  many  things  which  never  troubled  me ! 

Unreality  is  another  obvious  effect  of  excessive  corre- 
spondence ;  for  to  make  much  of  little  things  is  to  be 
unreal.  Sacraments  and  prayer  cease  to  have  their  natural 
and  legitimate  proportions,  when  we  are  so  eager,  and 
decisive,  and  communicative  about  children,  residences, 
visits,  summer  plans  and  winter  projects.  We  make  a 
romance  of  ourselves  in  our  letters,  and  paint  life  with 
an  artificial  rouge  because  its  native  complexion  is  for  the 
most  part  unhealthy  and  dull.  If  our  letters  turn  on 
religious  subjects,  so  much  the  worse;  for  then  they  are 
full  of  detraction,  levity,  and  spiritual  gossip. 

Building  castles  in  the  air  is  another  branch  of  this  use 


SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS.  235 

less  industry,  and  by  far  the  least  innocent  Did  any  one 
ever  catch  himself  building  a  castle  in  the  air,  which  did 
not  in  some  way  redound  to  his  own  honour  and  praise  ? 
Can  religious  men  spend  an  hour  in  giving  magnificent 
mental  alms,  or  bearing  crosses  heroically,  or  undergoing 
martyrdom,  or  evangelizing  continents,  or  ruling  churches, 
r  founding  hospitals,  or  entering  austere  orders,  or  ar- 
ranging edifying  death-beds,  or  working  miracles  at  their 
own  tombs,  without  their  being  essentially  lower  and 
grosser,  vainer  and  sillier  men,  than  they  were  when  the 
hour  began  ?  They  acquire  a  habit  of  admiring  fine 
things  without  practising  them.  It  is  worse  than  novel- 
reading,  for  here  men  write  as  well  as  read  them.  They 
become  intoxicated  with  conceit  and  sentimentality.  It 
gives  a  tincture  of  puerility  to  all  they  do,  and  lowers 
them  in  thought,  feeling  and  purpose.  Do  not  be  startled 
at  the  strong  words,  but  this  castle-building  literally  de- 
solates and  debauches  the  soul.  It  passes  over  it  like  a 
ruinous  eruption,  leaving  nothing  fresh,  green,  or  fruit- 
bearing  behind  it,  but  a*  general  languor,  peevishness  and 
weariness  with  God. 

The  not  managing  our  recreations  well  is  of  sufficient 
importance  to  form  a  fifth  kind  of  spiritual  idleness.  I 
have  already  said  that  recreation  is  a  matter  of  immense 
importance  in  the  spiritual  life.  The  whole  tradition  of 
the  Church  is  in  favour  of  it ;  and  I  doubt  if  ever  there 
was  a  religious  house  which  persevered  in  strict  observance 
for  any  length  of  time,  without  the  recreations  which  are 
traditional  in  each  order.  For  an  order  without  traditions 
is  an  order  without  life,  at  least  without  the  full  life  of 
maturity.  It  is  either  dead,  or  still  an  infant.  It  sounds 
Btrange  to  a  man  in  the  world  that  recreation  should  te 


236  SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS. 

compulsory  in  religious  houses;  yet  that  it  is  so,  is  part 
of  the  universal  heavenly  wisdom  common  to  all  monastio 
legislators.  But  in  the  world  recreation  is  an  affair  of 
much  greater  difficulty,  because  so  few  rules  can  be 
given  about  it.  All  we  can  say  is,  that  one  very  important 
question  concerns  the  kind  of  recreation  in  which  we  shall 
indulge.  It  must  be  suited  to  our  state  of  life,  and  no 
less  so  to  the  particular  point  of  advancement  which  we 
have  reached  in  the  spiritual  life.  It  must  be  conformed 
to  our  natural  character,  and  it  must  not  throw  us  with 
companions  who  will  do  our  souls  an  injury.  The  degree 
of  it  is  another  problem.  God's  glory  must  be  kept  in 
view,  and  we  must  never  emancipate  ourselves  from  a 
moderate  fear  of  dissipation  :  and  above  all  things  it  must 
be  seasonable.  For  an  inopportune  recreation  is  always 
a  loss  of  grace. 

It  is  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  results  of  well-managed 
recreations.  The  spirit  cannot  always  be  on  the  stretch. 
The  bow  must  be  unstrung  sometimes,  or  it  will  spoil. 
Now  a  well-managed  recreation  does  three  things ;  it  pre- 
serves all  the  grace  already  acquired  without  suffering  one 
fraction  of  it  to  be  lost,  or  one  degree  of  fervour  to  evapo- 
rate. The  love  of  God  runs  on  from  the  work  into  the 
recreation,  and  thus  the  habit  of  recollection  remains  un- 
broken, and  we  are  keeping  to  the  side  of  our  heavenly 
Father  in  our  amusements  as  closely  as  in  our  work  or  in 
our  trials.  Secondly,  it  not  only  keeps  together  the  past, 
and  preserves  its  spirit,  but  it  gains  us  strength  and 
freshness,  bravery  and  promptitude,  for  the  future.  Old 
grace  is  consolidated,  and  the  appetite  for  new  is 
quickened.  Children  are  said  to  grow  more  while  they 
are  sleeping  than  while  they  are  awake.     So  it  is  with  us 


SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS.  237 

in  recreation.  This  is  itn  third  function.  We  grow  on 
it.  It  is  no  standing  still.  It  is  not  only  a  blessing  for 
the  past,  and  a  blessing  for  the  future;  it  is  a  present 
blessing,  because  it  is  present  growth.  It  increases  our 
cheerfulness;  and  whatever  makes  us  cheerful  in  devo- 
tion give?  us  more  power.  It  would  be  a  great  thing  if 
recreation  merely  kept  us  from  sin,  by  filling  up  and  oc- 
cupying vacant  hours  when  the  infirmity  of  human  nature 
compels  us  to  intermit  our  direct  attention  to  religious 
things.  We  should  owe  to  it  our  preservation  from  a 
thousand  sins  of  thought,  and  dissipating  inutilities 
both  of  mind  and  heart.  But  this  is  far  below  its 
real  work.  Its  function  is  not  less  important  in  the 
spiritual  life  than  is  that  of  sleep  in  the  natural  life; 
and  like  sleep  it  has  need  of  a  wise,  considerate,  and 
firm  legislation. 

1  shall  conclude  the  subject  of  recreation  with  the  ad- 
vice of  Scaramelli.  If  our  spirit  ask  of  us  imperfect 
things,  such  as  diversions,  conversation  and  superfluous 
alleviations,  which  are  not  called  for  either  by  our  health 
or  the  discharge  of  our  relative  duties,  the  laws  of  per- 
fection require  us  to  mortify  ourselves.  I  know  that 
these  recreations  are  the  very  food  of  those  who  are  weak 
in  spirit;  as  the  apostle  ways,  He  that  is  weak,  let  him 
eat  herbs  :  for  being  deprived  of  the  consolations  which 
grace  brings  to  pure  souls,  they  feed  their  hunger  and 
weariness  with  these  earthly  consolations.  Richard  of 
St.  Victor  says  that  a  man  finds  food  in  his  own  nature, 
the  food  of  sweetness,  and  food  in  accidental  causes,  such 
as  prosperity  and  success.  But  this  is  not  the  spiritual 
food  wherewith  Christ  refreshed  Himself.  Nevertheless 
it  is  the  food  of  the  imperfect,  the  pothorbs  of  the  weak : 


238  SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS. 

and  is  often  useful  food :  for  it  partly  heals  and  socthes 
the  disease  of  sloth,  which  the  mind  suffers  because  of 
the  penury  of  grace.  But  persons  who  are  seriously 
bent  on  the  attainment  of  perfection  must  deprive  them- 
selves of  these  useless  recreations,  so  as  to  dispose  them- 
selves to  receive  from  God  a  greater  abundance  of  grace 
and  heavenly  benedictions.  If  our  spirit  asks  of  us  any- 
thing concerning  food,  sleep,  clothing  and  diversion, 
which  is  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  life  or  the  pre- 
servation of  health  or  the  right  performance  of  our  duties, 
or  anything  which  obedience,  fittingness,  and  right  reason 
also  require,  we  must  condescend  to  its  requests  and  in- 
dulge ourselves  in  the  necessary  recreations.  But  in 
these  cases  a  spiritual  man  must,  be  careful  to  purify  his 
intention,  and  to  protest  to  himself  that  he  only  conde- 
scends to  these  things  in  order  to  do  God's  holy  will,  not 
to  satisfy  his  own  natural  inclination,  to  please  Him,  not 
to  please  himself.  So  that  his  condescension  may  be 
rather  to  the  instincts  of  nature  than  to  its  affections ; 
and  even  in  his  condescension  he  may  contrive  to  con- 
tradict his  own  satisfaction,  and  seek  only  the  will  and 
pleasure  of  God.  In  this  manner  the  human  spirit  may 
have  its  appetite  satisfied,  without  its  satisfaction  being 
any  impediment  to  spiritual  progress.  I  am  aware  that 
these  things  are  difficult  to  put  in  practice,  but  St.  Ber- 
nard says  that  we  have  but  to  lean  confidently  on  God, 
and  all  will  be  accomplished,  according  to  that  word,  T 
can  do  all  things  in  Him  who  strengthened  me.* 

A  gejeral  indifference  about  the  use  of  our  time  is  a 
sixth  manifestation  of  spiritual  idleness.  The  use  of 
time  U  »  large  subject;  and  it  is  one  of  far  greater  con- 

»  Discernimento  degli  spirit,  sect.  272,  273. 


SPIRITUAL    IDLENESS.  •      ^db 

sequence  t.Imn  many  suppose,  in  those  who  are  aiming  at 
perfection.  Bcliecius  in  his  work  on  Solid  Virtue  give? 
a  whole  book  to  ttte  one  act  of  early  rising,  which  is  but 
a  single  instance  0/  our  use  of  time.  We  have  to  re- 
member that  time  is  ihe  stuff  out  of  which  eternity  i? 
made,  that  it  is  at  once  precious  and  irrevocable,  and  that 
we  shall  have  to  give  tne  strictest  account  of  it  at  the 
last.  Very  few  faults  are  irreparable,  but  the  loss  of 
time  is  one  of  those  few;  and  when  we  consider  how 
easy  a  fault  it  is,  how  frequent,  how  silent,  how  alluring, 
we  shall  discern  something  of  its  real  danger.  Idleness 
moreover,  when  it  has  fastened  upon  us,  is  a  perfect 
tyranny,  a  slavery  whose  shackles  are  felt  whatever  limb 
we  move,  or  even  when  we  are  lying  still.  It  is  a  capti- 
vating bondage  also,  whose  very  sweetness  renders  it 
more  perilous.  But  the  worst  feature  about  it  is  its  de- 
ceitfulneijs.  No  idle  man  believes  himself  to  be  idle,  ex- 
cept in  the  lucid  intervals  of  grace.  No  one  will  credit 
how  strong  the  habit  of  losing  time  will  rapidly  become. 
To  break  away  from  it  requires  a  vehemence  and  a  con- 
tinuity of  effort  to  which  few  are  equal.  Meanwhile  the 
iebateable  land  which  lies  between  it  and  lukewarmness 
is  swiftly  traversed.  The  hourly  accumulation  of  minute 
carelessnesses  is  clogging  and  hampering  the  soul,  while 
it  is  also  running  us  fearfully  into  ^ebt  to  the  temporal 
justice  of  God.  It  makes  our  life  ttv  very  opposite  of 
His.  His  minute  notice  of  us  stands  in  dreadful  con- 
trast with  our  half-intentional  and  half-unintentionai 
oblivion  and  disregard  of  Him.  I  doubt  if  a  jealous 
and  conscientious  use  of  time  can  ever,  as  many  spiritual 
excellencies  can,  become  a  habit.  I  suspect  time  is  a 
thing  which  has  to  be  watched  all  through  life.     It  is  a 


240  SPIRITUAL   IDLENESS. 

running  stream  every  ripple  of  which  is  freighted  witl 
some  tell-tale  evidence  which  it  hastens  to  depose  with 
unerring  fidelity  in  that  sea  which  circles  the  throne  of 
God.  It  makes  us  tremble  to  think  of  St.  Alphonso  just 
after  he  had  made  his  solemn  vow  never  to  waste  a  mo- 
ment of  time.  We  feel  that  a  man  who  with  his  hu- 
mility and  discretion  dared  to  commit  himself  to  such  a 
life,  could  only  end  by  being  raised  upon  the  altars  of  the 
Church. 

The  seventh  and  last  developement  of  spiritual  idle- 
ness is  loquacity.  Thomas  a  Kempis  says  that  he  never 
returned  to  his  cell  after  a  conversation,  without  entering 
it  a  worse  man  than  he  had  left  it )  and  another  holy 
person  said  that  he  never  in  his  life  had  repented  of  hold- 
ing his  tongue,  whereas  he  had  rarely  ever  spoken  without 
being  sorry  for  it  afterwards.  What  an  insight  this  gives 
us  into  the  very  core  of  a  saint's  life !  In  spirituality 
when  the  tired  soul  seeks  some  undue  vent  or  recreation, 
there  is  no  relief,  except  castlebuilding,  more  dangerous 
than  loquacity;  and  it  is  one  of  the  commonest  of  temp- 
tations. Some  are  tempted  to  be  loquacious  with  every- 
body who  will  be  a  listener;  others  only  with  certain 
people,  who  are  sympathetic,  and  with  whom  to  exchange 
sentiments  is  to  rest  their  minds.  Others  are  only 
tempted  to  talk  at  wrong  times  and  on  wrong  subjects ; 
and  this  is  sometimes  from  the  devil,  and  sometimes 
from  the  human  spirit.  As  a  general  maxim  it  may  be 
laid  down  that  in  a  spiritual  person  all  effusion  of  heart 
is  undesirable,  except  to  God,  and  that  it  is  equally  unde- 
sirable whether  it  be  about  God  or  about  some  indifferent 
subject.  There  is  nothing  to  choose  between  them. 
The  evil  is  in  the  effusion.     We  fancy  it  relieves  us  in 


SPIItlTtAt  IDLENESS.  241 

temptation.  But  there  never  was  a  greater  mistake. 
With  the  exception  of  certain  temptations,  solitude  braces 
us  up,  where  effusion  weakens  and  enervates  us.  Pious 
people,  before  they  begin  to  be  saint-like,  are  notably 
loquacious ;  and  it  is  often  loquacity  which  retards  the 
hour  when  the  likeness  of  the  saints  will  pass  upon  them, 
or  frustrates  the  process  altogether. 

It  is  plain  that  every  one  of  these  seven  idlenesses 
might  be  made  the  subject  of  a  little  treatise;  but  I 
have  said  enough  for  my  purpose.  Perfection  in  the 
world  is  a  difficult  affair,  and  many  things  are  fatal  to 
it.  Idleness  perhaps  slaughters  more  growths  in  holi- 
ness than  anything  else ;  because  it  is  so  very  hard  for 
persons  in  the  world  not  to  be  idle.  Everything  around 
us  is  pusillanimous  and  exaggerated.  The  ideas  which 
pass  current  are  little  and  low.  The  air  we  breathe  is* 
languor.  The  types  we  behold  are  pompous  follies. 
Of  spiritual  romance  there  is  enough,  of  spiritual  fop- 
pery more  than  enough,  but  of  healthy  mortification  and 
sincere  manly  devotion  less  than  would  seem  possible,  if 
the  fact  were  not  certain.  Thus  everything  draws  us  to 
dleness  and  to  inutility.  It  is  a  common  observation  that 
religious,  of  both  sexes,  are  strikingly  cheerful.  This  is 
owing  in  no  slight  degree  to  the  preservation  from  idle- 
ness which  rule  and  community  life  ensure.  We  have 
none  of  those  helps,  and  therefore  we  have  more  to 
dread  from  this  particular  enemy.  In  fact  the  danger 
and  the  fatal  character  of  idleness  may  be  reckoned 
among  the  prominent  characteristics  of  the  attempt  to 
attain  perfection  in  the  world.  We  have  already  found 
that  for  perfection  in  the  world  a  peculiar  exercise  of 
patipnoe  is  necessary  in  order  to  supply  the  place  of  a  re 
21  Q 


242  SPIRITUAL  IDLENESS. 

ligious  rule.  So  now  we  must  give  a  more  than  ( omraot 
attention  to  the  industrious  use  of  time  and  the  discreet 
management  of  recreations,  in  order  to  meet  dangers 
which  religious  are  beautifully  defended  from  by  com- 
munity life,  and  a  community  life  invented  by  a  saintly 
founder.  Idleness  must  be  a  very  prominent  object  in 
our  warfare,  else  we  shall  never  attain  to  the  perfection 
which  the  saints  tell  us  is  open  to  people  in  the  world. 


PRAYER.  243 


CHAPTER  XV. 

PRAYER. 

The  spiritual  life  is  quite  a  cognizably  distinct  thing 
crom  the  worldly  life;  and  the  difference  comes  from 
prayer.  When  grace  lovingly  drives  a  man  to  give  him- 
self up  to  prayer,  he  gets  into  the  power  of  prayer,  and 
prayer  makes  a  new  man  of  him  ;  and  so  completely  does 
he  find  that  his  life  is  prayer,  that  at  last  he  prays  always. 
His  life  itself  becomes  one  unbroken  prayer.  Unbroken, 
because  it  does  not  altogether  nor  so  much  reside  in 
methods  of  mental  or  forms  of  vocal  prayer;  but  it  is  an 
attitude  of  heart  by  which  all  his  actions  and  sufferings 
become  living  prayers. 

The  life  of  prayer,  therefore,  which  is  the  badge  of  the 
supernatural  man,  is  the  praying  always.  But  what  is  it 
to  pray  always?  What  did  our  Lord  mean  by  it?  To 
pray  always  is  always  to  feel  the  sweet  urgency  of  prayer, 
and  to  hunger  after  it.  Grace  is  palpably  felt  and 
touched  in  prayer;  hence  it  strengthens  our  faith  and 
inflames  our  love.  The  peculiar  trial  of  hard  work  is 
that  it  keeps  us  so  much  from  prayer,  and  takes  away  the 
flower  of  our  strength  before  we  have  time  for  prayer, 
and  physical  strength  is  very  needful  for  praying  well. 
In  consequence  of  this  attraction  we  acquire  habits  of 
prayer  by  having  set  times  for  it,  whether  mental  or 
vocal.  Not  that  a  mere  habit  of  praying  will  make  any 
one  a  man  of  prayer.  But  God  will  not  send  His  fire, 
if  we  do  not  first  lay  the  sacrifice  in  order.     We  must 


244  PRAYER. 

also  practise  ejaculatory  prayer,  and  have  certain  fixed 
ejaculations,  as  well  as  make  frequent  spontaneous  aspi- 
rations to  heaven  during  the  day,  at  will,  and  out  of  the 
fervid  abundance  of  our  hearts.  Besides  this,  there  is  a 
certain  gravitation  of  the  mind  to  God  in  a  prayerftu 
way,  which  comes  from  love  and  from  the  practice  of  tht» 
divine  presence,  and  which  ranges  from  intercession  to 
thanksgiving,  and  from  thanksgiving  to  praise,  and  from 
praise  to  petition,  according  as  the  moods  of  our  mind 
change,  and  with  hardly  any  trouble  or  any  conscious 
process.  To  pray  always  is,  furthermore,  to  renew  fre- 
quently our  acts  of  pure  intention  for  the  glory  of  God, 
and  thus  to  animate  with  the  life  of  prayer  our  actions, 
conversations,  studies,  and  sufferings. 

This  is  to  pray  always :  and  see  what  comes  of  it ! 
Into  what  a  supernatural  state  it  throws  a  man !  He 
lives  in  a  different  world  from  other  men.  Different 
dwellers  are  round  about  him,  and  are  his  familiars,  God, 
Jesus,  Mary,  Angels,  and  Saints.  They  are  the  under- 
current of  his  mind,  and  often  preside  over  the  very 
expression  of  his  thoughts.  He  has  not  the  same  inter- 
ests, hopes,  and  aims  as  other  men.  When  he  wishes  to 
do  anything,  he  goes  to  work  in  a  different  way  from 
others,  and  he  tests  his  success  differently.  Indeed,  in 
nothing  is  he  so  remote  from  men  of  the  world  as  in  his 
tests  of  success,  which  are  wholly  supernatural  and  full 
of  the  unearthly  spirit  of  the  Incarnation.  His  views  of 
the  world  are  strange,  although  they  are  definite  and 
clear,  because  somehow  he  sees  the  world  confusedly 
through  the  vision  of  the  Church ;  and  he  judges  of  the 
relations  and  distances  of  things  according  as  they  group 
wound  the  central  faith.     His  affections  become  shifted, 


PRAYER.  24b 

bo  that  he  is  regarded  even  by  those  near  him  as  an  im- 
passible man,  and  by  those  further  off  as  a  co.d  heart  that 
is  destitute  of  natural  affections  and  the  keen  sympathies 
of  kindred.  Moreover  the  temper  of  repose  which  prayer 
breeds  is  unfavourable  to  success  and  advancement  in  a 
worldly  sense,  because  it  is  unfavourable  to  the  eager 
desire  and  restless  pursuit  of  them. 

This  influence  of  prayer  comes  out  in  a  man's  opinions 
and  judgments  of  men,  measures,  and  things.  It  is  heard 
in  his  language.  It  is  seen  in  his  tranquillity.  It  is 
recognized  in  his  dealings  with  others,  and  is  the  ruling 
principle  of  his  occasional  apparent  want  of  sympathy 
with  others.  Such  is  a  man  whose  faculties,  affections, 
and  in  some  degree  even  his  senses,  have  been  mastered 
by  the  spirit  of  prayer.  We  should  expect  it  would  win 
men  by  its  gracefulness,  like  an  angel's  presence.  But 
it  is  not  so,  because  its  beauty  requires  a  spiritual  discern- 
ment. To  the  eyes  of  the  world  such  a  man  has  all  the 
strangeness  and  awkwardness  of  a  foreigner,  which  in 
sober  truth  he  is.  Yet  such  a  man  is  striking  to  others 
in  after-thought,  as  the  Blessed  Sacrament  so  often  is  to 
Protestants,  when  they  have  come  unawares  into  His 
presence  and  gone  again.  It  is  the  way  of  God,  and  of 
the  things  of  God,  to  be  striking  in  after-thought. 

The  most  serious  business  of  the  interior  life  is  mental 
prayer,  of  which  I  will  speak  first.  Spiritual  writers,  and 
even  saints,  have  sometimes  spoken  as  if  meditation  were 
almost  necessary  to  salvation ;  and  there  are  senses  and 
cases  in  whieh  this  may  be  true.  It  is,  however,  quite 
certain  that  mental  prayer  is  necessary  to  perfection,  and 
that  there  can  be  nothing  like  a  spiritual  life  without  it. 
For  mental  prayer  means  the  occupation  of  our  faculties 
21  * 


246  PRAYER. 

upon  God;  not  in  the  way  of  thinking  or  speculating  about 
Him,  bit  stirring  up  the  will  to  conform  itself  to  Him 
and  the  affections  to  love  Him.  The  subjects  ou  which 
it  is  engaged  are  all  the  works  of  God,  as  well  as  His 
own  perfections ;  but  above  all,  the  Sacred  Humanity  of 
our  Blersed  Lord.  The  length  of  time  to  be  spent  in  it 
will  vary  with  individual  cases ;  and  there  are  a  variety 
of  methods  out  of  which  a  man  may  choose.  But  it  is 
most  important  he  should  keep  to  his  method  when  he 
has  chosen  it.  Of  this,  however,  something  shall  be  said 
hereafter. 

Mental  prayer,  in  itself  difficult,  is  rendered  still  more 
so  by  the  temptations  which  beset  it.  It  is  irksome, 
quite  beyond  all  explanation  as  well  as  expectation ;  and 
its  irksomeness  tempts  us  to  abandon  it.  Very  often 
when  we  try  to  meditate,  a  sheer  inability  to  think  at  all 
comes  over  us  in  a  most  unaccountable  manner.  What- 
ever may  be  the  bodily  posture  which  we  are  recommended 
to  assume  at  prayer,  its  sameness  becomes  wearisome ; 
and  if  we  keep  changing,  anything  worthy  of  the  name 
of  prayer  is  out  of  the  question.  Distractions  torment 
us  at  every  turn,  and  their  name  is  legion.  Sensible 
devotion  is  our  only  hope,  and  it  is  continually  being 
withdrawn,  without  apparent  fault  of  ours.  Temptations 
to  intermit  our  meditation  seem  specious,  when  tempta- 
tions to  abandon  it  altogether  would  be  rejected.  At  other 
times  we  are  tempted  to  think  its  importance  has  been 
exaggerated.  And  if  we  dare  disturb  nothing  else  about 
it,  we  satisfy  our  restlessness  by  varying  our  times  for  it, 
and  even  for  this  slight  concession  we  often  pay  dearly. 

Now  the  remedy  for  all  these  temptations  consists  in 
«ur  considering  our  meditation  as  the  great  feature  of 


PRAYER.  247 

our  day,  in  our  spending  all  the  time  we  can  in  spiritual 
reading,  in  being  full,  open,  and  obedient  to  our  directoi 
in  all  questions  concerning  it,  in  weaning  ourselves  by 
degrees  from  sensible  consolations,  and  in  estimating  at 
their  proper  value  the  fruits  of  a  dry,  or,  as  we  often  per- 
versely call  it,  a  bad  meditation.  We  must  throw  our 
whole  strength  into  this  matter;  for  the  practice  of  the 
presence  of  God,  our  strength  against  evil  angels  and  evil 
habits,  our  habitual  cheerfulness,  our  ability  to  carry 
crosses,  and  all  that  we  can  do  ourselves  towards  final 
perseverance,  depend  on  prayer. 

If  we  attentively  examine  the  various  methods  of 
prayer  which  approved  writers  have  given  us,  we  shall 
see  that  they  may  be  resolved  into  two,  the  Ignatian  and 
the  jSulpician,  if  we  may  call  them  by  those  names.  The 
advantages  of  the  Ignatian  method  are,  that  it  is  more 
adapted  to  modern  habits  of  mind,  that  it  suits  the  greater 
number  of  persons,  that  it  can  be  taught  as  an  art,  and 
that  most  meditation-books  are  framed  upon  it.  The 
advantages  of  the  Sulpician  method  are,  that  it  is  a  more 
faithful  transcript  of  the  tradition  of  the  old  Fathers  and 
the  saints  of  the  desert,  that  it  supplies  a  want  for  those 
who  on  the  one  hand  can  make  no  way  with  the  Igna- 
tian method,  and  on  the  other  have  no  aptitude  for  what 
is  called  Affective  Prayer,  and  that  it  is  in  some  respects 
more  suitable  for  those  who  are  often  interrupted  at  medi- 
tation, inasmuch  as  it  is  a  perfect  work  wherever  it  is 
broken  off,  whereas  the  power  of  the  Ignatian  method 
is  in  its  conclusion.  These  are  the  characteristics  of 
the  two  methods.  No  comparison  can  be  instituted  be- 
tween them  because  both  are  holy,  both  have  schooled 


248  PRAYER. 

saints,  and  the  use  of  ihem  is  a  matter  either  of  choice  or 
of  vocation. 

1  will  speak  briefly  of  both  these  methods,  and  first 
of  the  Ignatian,  which  is  by  far  the  most  widely  spread. 
Meditation  is  a  gift  for  which  we  must  make  special 
prayer ;  and  with  this  prayer  we  must  join  an  ardent  de- 
sire for  perfection  in  general.  We  must  make  a  diligent 
use  of  the  means  recommended,  and  we  must  regard  spi- 
ritual reading  as  being  to  meditation  what  oil  is  to  the 
lamp.  There  are,  therefore,  two  preparations  to  medita- 
tion ;  one  is  remote,  the  other  proximate.  Remote  pre- 
paration consists  partly  in  removing  obstacles,  and  partly 
in  obtaining  the  aids  requisite.  The  obstacles  to  be  re- 
moved are,  a  good  opinion  of  ourselves,  and  a  want  of 
concealment  of  our  austerities  and  devotions,  all  affections 
to  habitual  infirmities,  even  though  the  infirmities  them- 
selves for  the  present  remain  habitual,  dissipation  of  mind, 
negligent  custody  of  the  senses,  and  an  off-hand  way  of 
performing  our  ordinary  actions.  The  aids  which  we  re- 
quire are  the  lower  degrees  of  humility,  simplicity,  and 
purity  of  intention  in  a  general  way,  sufficient  custody 
of  the  senses  to  insure  tranquillity  of  mind,  and  a  certain 
inconsiderable  degree  of  mortification.  Proximate  prepa- 
ration consists  in  reading,  hearing,  or  getting  ready  our 
meditation  over-night,  and  especially  in  noting  what  fruit 
naturally  comes  of  it,  or  is  most  suited  to  our  present  spi- 
ritual needs;  before  we  compose  ourselves  to  sleep  we  are 
to  think  briefly  over  it,  and  make  some  suitable  ejacula- ' 
tion )  when  we  awake  we  are  instantly  to  recall  the  sub- 
ject of  meditation ;  while  we  are  dressing,  to  think  of  it 
or  nourish  sentiments  akin  to  it,  to  quiet  our  minds  by 
making  an  act  of  the  presence  of  God  or  of  the  Sacred 


PRATER.  249 

HumaLitj  for  about  the  space  of  an  Ave  Maria,  and  this 
should  be  done  before  we  kneel  down;  and  to  observe  a 
strict  silence  from  the  time  we  have  prepared  our  medi- 
tation till  the  next  morning,  so  as  to  exclude  dissipating 
thoughts  and  images.  They  who  have  submitted  to  the 
bondage  of  these  regulations  have  found  a  blessing  in 
them.  Many  minds  cannot  brook  them.  Without  a  know- 
ledge of  the.  individual  case,  no  one  can  see  how  far,  or 
from  what  particulars,  persons  may  without  prejudice  be 
dispensed.  There  are  not  many  to  whom  the  whole  array 
of  the  Ignatian  method  is  necessary  for  any  long  time,  but 
there  are  many  who  can  never  make  good  meditations 
now,  but  who  would  have  done  so  if  they  would  have  con- 
strained themselves  and  borne  the  yoke  for  a  little  while 
at  first.  These  two  preparations  are  followed  by  an  act 
of  adoration  and  a  preparatory  prayer. 

After  the  preparations  come  the  preludes,  of  which 
there  are  always  two,  and  sometimes  three.  The  first 
prelude  consists  in  sketching  to  ourselves  a  rapid  picture 
of  the  subject  of  our  meditation.  This  helps  to  keep  off 
distractions,  just  as  looking  hard  at  a  thing  makes  us 
think  of  it.  If  we  are  distracted  during  the  course  of  our 
meditation,  then  we  revert  to  our  picture,  just  as  we  look 
back  to  anything  we  are  copying  when  a  noise  has  made 
us  look  up.  Some  writers  tell  us  always  to  put  ourselves 
into  these  pictures,  and  to  take  care  that  the  pictures  are 
congenial  with  the  special  fruit  we  look  for  in  that  medi- 
tation. The  second  prelude  is  a  direct  petition  for  that 
fruit,  which  it  is  well  to  ask  through  the  saint  whom  the 
Church  honours  that  day.  In  histories,  there  is  a  third 
prelude,  which  consists  in  very  briefly  going  through  the 
story.  All  the  preludes  together  should  not  occupy  above 
five  miDutes. 


450  PRAYER. 

The  preludes  are  followed  by  the  body  of  the  medita- 
tion, which  consists  of  three  things,  the  use  of  the  mem- 
ory, the  use  of  the  understanding,  and  the  use  of  the  will 
The  use  of  the  memory  seems  much  the  same  thing  as 
the  first  prelude,  but  it  differs  from  it  in  length,  in  accu- 
racy, and  in  particularity.  It  consists,  to  put  it  as  briefly 
as  possible,  in  asking  seven  questions,  Who?  What? 
Where?  With  what  means?  Why?  How?  When? 
And  this  is  applicable  either  to  texts  or  mysteries.  We 
need  not  take  very  long  in  this  first  part  of  the  meditation, 
else  it  will  pass  off  into  a  mere  diversion  of  the  imagina- 
tion. Nevertheless,  we  must  go  through  it  very  accurately, 
and  with  scrupulous  exactness.  For  we  shall  find  here- 
after that  the  root  of  our  affections  and  resolutions  is  here. 
A  careless  and  perfunctory  use  of  our  memory  will  bring 
barrenness  of  reflections,  dry  formality  in  affections,  and 
a  want  of  compunction  and  nerve  in  resolutions.  We  must 
not  be  disturbed  when  we  find  memory  trenching  on  the 
province  of  understanding.  One  is  meant  to  glide  off 
into  the  other;  and  there  will  be  always  left  for  the  un- 
derstanding the  particular  application  of  the  general  truth 
to  ourselves  and  our  present  spiritual  necessities. 

For,  by  the  understanding,  which  is  the  second  part 
?f  the  meditation,  we  do  these  five  things.  We  apply  the 
subject  of  our  meditation  to  ourselves,  we  draw  conclu- 
sions, we  weigh  motives,  we  examine  past  and  present 
conduct,  and  we  anticipate  future  dispositions.  The  main 
thing  in  the  use  of  our  understanding  is  to  be  exceedingly 
simple.  Like  the  use  of  the  memory,  it  also  consists  in 
asking  seven  questions.  First,  What  am  I  to  think  about 
thin  ?  Secondly,  What  practical  lesson  am  I  to  draw  from 
it  ?     And  the  lesson  must  be  particular,  not  general,  and 


PRAYER.  251 

it  must  be  adapted  to  our  employment,  character,  and 
condition.  Thirdly,  What  motives  persuade  me  to  this 
practice?  And  they  must  be  such  as  these,  convenience, 
by  which  I  mean  fittingness,  utility,  at  least  on  superna- 
tural grounds,  satisfaction,  easiness,  or  necessity.  Fourthly, 
JHow  have  I  acted  up  to  this  hitherto  ?  And  here  we  must 
be  disinclined  to  let  conscience  answer  satisfactorily,  and 
only  give  way  to  irresistible  evidence  when  it  is  favourable. 
We  must  insist  on  our  own  confusion.  We  must  descend 
to  particulars,  and  we  must  jealously  sift  our  present  dis- 
positions. Fifthly,  How  must  I  act  for  the  future  ?  Here 
we  must  put  imaginary  cases,  not  wild,  unlikely,  or  far- 
fetched, but  such  as  may  easily  happen  that  same  day. 
Sixthly,  What  impediments  must  I  remove?  Here  we 
must  use  the  self-knowledge  which  our  daily  examination 
of  conscience  gives  us.  On  the  whole  our  impediments 
are  mostly  three,  conceit,  sensuality  and  dissipation. 
Seventhly,  What  means  am  I  to  choose  ?  Here  we  must 
be  careful  to  be  particular,  not  general  and  vague;  and 
above  all,  we  must  be  discreet,  and  not  load  ourselves  with 
too  much.  Many  are  found  in  the  evening  without  anj 
cross  at  all  because  the  one  they  fastened  on  their  shoul- 
ders in  their  morning  meditation  was  heavier  than  they 
could  bear ;  so  they  threw  it  down  and  were  our  Lord's 
disciples  only  half  that  day. 

The  third  part  of  the  meditation  is  the  use  of  the  will. 
Without  this,  meditation  is  not  mental  prayer,  but  either 
a  speculation  or  an  incomplete  examination  of  conscience. 
The  use  of  the  will  is  twofold,  the  production  of  affec- 
tions, and  the  production  of  resolutions*  In  reality  affec- 
tions may  find  their  place  all  over  the  meditation,  in  the 
application  of  the  memory,  and  even  in  the  preludes 


252  PRATER. 

They  can  hardly  ever  be  out  of  place  wherever  they  come 
It  is  a  good  thing  to  have  texts  or  sayings  of  the  saints 
in  our  minds  for  the  more  ready  expression  of  holy  affec- 
tions; but  we  must  have  collected  them  for  ourselves,  or 
they  will  not  have  half  the  unction.  We  should  never 
break  off  an  affection  which  has  to  do  with  humility,  so 
long  as  there  is  any  sweetness  in  it.  The  whole  hour 
would  be  excellently  spent  in  it,  even  to  the  neglect  of  the 
rest  of  the  meditation.  The  same,  however,  cannot  be 
said  of  joy  and  triumph,  which  are  open  to  snares  and 
delusions,  and  should  be  kept  within  bounds.  Even  com- 
punction cannot  have  the  reins  given  up  to  it,  desirable 
as  are  its  affections ;  for  they  tend  to  be  immoderate  and 
easily  coalesce  with  self-love.  If  affections  are  slow  in 
coming,  we  must  not  lose  our  peace  of  mind  and  begin  to 
be  restless,  but  quietly  excite  them  by  acts  of  faith. 

But  precious  as  are  the  affections  of  prayer,  the  reso- 
lutions are  still  more  valuable.  Their  place  should  be  not 
only  in  each  point  of  our  meditation,  but  at  the  close  of 
each  practical  doctrine  in  each  point.  They  must  be  prac- 
tical, and  must  not  consist  in  promising  certain  devotions 
and  prayers,  but  in  resolving  to  avoid  this  or  to  mortify 
that.  They  must  be  particular,  and  not  general.  They 
must  have  to  do  with  our  present  state  and  with  imme- 
diate action.  To  resolve  to  do  so  and  so  when  you  arrive 
at  such  a  point,  or  when  such  a  time  comes,  is  castle- 
building,  not  resolving.  If  possible,  our  resolutions  should 
have  to  do  with  the  probable  events  of  the  very  day,  so 
that  our  particular  examen  may  entwine  itself  with  our 
meditation.  They  must  be  founded  on  solid  motives,  and 
have  been  often  meditated,  not  rash,  or  off-hand,  or  above 
our  courage  when  we  cool  down  out  of  prayer.     If  any- 


PRAYER.  258 

thing,  they  should  be  below  what  we  might  reasonably 
hope  to  do,  and  very  humble.  For  things  seem  easy  in 
meditation,  so  that  we  do  not  distrust  ourselves  suffi- 
ciently; and  God  rarely  strengthens  an  over-confident 
soul,  and  so  we  fail.  How  many  of  the  downcast  tales 
which  people  tell  about  their  not  advancing,  should  go  to 
the  account  of  reckless  resolutions  in  the  half-natural, 
half-supernatural  heat  of  prayer  ! 

We  have  now  come  to  the  conclusion  of  the  meditation. 
This  is  important,  and  must  be  gone  through  calmly  and 
fervently.  If  done  in  haste,  so  as  to  be  within  the  hour, 
or  for  any  other  reason,  it  often  spoils  the  whole  medita- 
tion. We  must  first  collect  all  our  resolutions  together, 
and  renew  them.  This  will  often  quicken  with  fervour 
the  end  of  the  hour  that  was  perhaps  flagging  through 
dryness  and  languor.  The  colloquies  with  God,  our  Lady, 
or  the  Saints,  follow  next.  In  them  we  must  be  particu- 
lar to  ask  for  the  special  and  predetermined  fruit  of  the 
meditation ;  and  with  this  we  may  couple  any  petition  we 
have  much  at  heart,  and  also  a  humble  oblation  of  the 
resolutions  we  have  made.  A  Pater,  Ave,  and  the  Anima 
Christi  are  next  prescribed  in  most  of  the  meditation 
books  written  on  this  system.  We  then  leave  off  con- 
versing directly  with  God ;  but  we  do  not  leave  His  pre- 
sence. On  the  contrary,  we  are  more  than  usually  careful 
at  that  moment,  lest  the  spirit  of  dissipation  should  come 
upon  us,  and  there  should  be  too  sudden  a  reaction  from 
the  recollectedness  of  prayer. 

If  St.  Ignatius   could    have    his  will,  the   meditation 

would  not  end  here.     He  would  have  us  sit  down  or  walk 

about,  and  make  what  he  calls  the  consideration  of  our 

meditation.    The  want  of  this  he  looks  upon  as  the  reason 

22 


254  PRAYER. 

of  continued  bad  meditations.  If  we  reflected  on  them, 
aud  found  out  they  were  bad  at  the  time,  we  should  pro- 
bably find  out  what  it  was  that  made  them  bad,  and  so 
avoid  it  for  the  future.  Indeed,  of  such  importance  is 
this  consideration  deemed,  that  we  are  recommended  to 
make  it  later  on  in  the  day,  if  we  have  omitted  it  in  the 
morning.  The  consideration  is  divided  into  two  parts,  the 
examen  and  the  recapitulation.  In  the  examen  we  briefly 
review  our  over-night  preparation,  our  first  thoughts  on 
rising,  our  beginnings,  preparatory  prayer,  preludes,  choice 
of  fruit,  the  progress  of  the  meditation,  how  we  dealt 
with  distractions  in  all  the  three  parts,  whether  our  collo- 
quies were  fervent  and  humble,  whether  we  have  listened 
to  hear  if  God  would  speak  in  our  hearts,  and  whether 
we  have  been  free  from  irreverence  of  body,  or  rashness 
of  speech,  or  precipitation  of  mind.  If  all  this  has  been 
done  fairly  well,  we  thank  Almighty  God  for  the  grace 
in  the  strength  of  which  alone  we  have  been  successful. 
If  it  has  been  done  ill,  we  make  an  act  of  contrition  and 
a  modest  resolution  for  the  future,  without  giving  way  to 
sadness  or  disquietude.  We  must  always  bear  in  mind 
that  the  time  of  prayer  is  God's  punishment  time.  It  is 
then  that  venial  sins,  little  infidelities,  inordinate  friend- 
ships, and  worldly  attachments,  will  rise  up  and  complain 
of  us,  and  we  shall  be  chastised  for  them. 

The  recapitulation  revolves  the  lessons  we  have  learned, 
the  resolutions  we  have  made,  and  the  fruit  we  hoped  to 
obtain ;  and  it  implores  once  more  the  grace  to  keep  our 
resolutions.  "We  are  then  to  take  an  ejaculation  for  the 
day,  or  some  thought  which  shall  be  a  spiritual  nosegay 
to  refresh  us  in  the  dust  and  turmoil  of  the  world. 
Finally  we  are  to  write  down  the  lights  we  have  received 


PRAYER.  255 

A»id  the  resolutions  we  have  made,  so  as  to  rekindle  our 
fervour  when  it  flags,  by  the  perusal  of  them.  This  last 
practice,  however,  requires  great  discretion,  and  is  not 
suitable  for  all.  This  consideration,  St.  Ignatius  says, 
should  occupy  "  about"  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 

The  first  perusal  of  the  Ignatian  plan  is  like  a  cleric's 
nrst  look  into  a  breviary.  It  seems  as  if  we  should  never 
find  our  way  about  in  it.  But  the  processes  are  in  reality 
so  natural  that  they  soon  become  easy  to  us,  and  follow 
each  other  in  legitimate  succession  almost  without  effort 
or  reflection.  It  is  much  more  easy  than  it  seems.  The 
method  of  St.  Francis  of  Sales  is  substantially  the  same, 
with  some  of  the  peculiarities  of  his  own  character  thrown 
into  it.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  method  of  St. 
Alphonso,  which  is  that  of  St.  Ignatius  with  somewhat 
more  freedom,  such  as  we  should  expect  from  the  charac- 
ter of  that  glorious  saint,  who,  to  his  many  other  titles  to 
the  gratitude  of  the  modern  Church,  might  add  that  of 
the  apostle  of  prayer.  Beginners  are  always  inclined  to 
dispense  themselves  from  the  mechanical  parts  of  the 
system.  But  it  is  well  worth  our  while  to  be  patient  for 
a  few  weeks.  We  shall  never  be  sorry  for  it,  whereas  we 
shall  regret  the  contrary  line  of  conduct  as  long  as  we 
live.  We  must  beware  also  of  kneeling  vacantly  and 
doing  nothing,  which  adds  the  fault  of  irreverence  to  that 
of  idleness.  We  must  not  look  out  for  interior  voices,  or 
marked  experiences,  or  decided  impressions  of  the  divine 
will  upon  our  minds,  nor  give  in  to  the  temptation  of 
leaving  the  plain  road  of  pains-taking  meditation  in  order 
to  reach  God  by  some  shorter  way.  At  first  it  is  not  well 
to  read  many  books  about  prayer;  but  keep  to  the  few 
oral  advices  of  our  director.     We  must  always  be  trying, 


256  PRAYER. 

ret  in  a  quiet  way,  to  be  shorter  with  our  consideration* 
and  longer  with  our  affections ;  and  if  all  our  meditation 
should  be  unmanageably  dry,  we  must  make  some  parti- 
cular resolution  before  we  leave  our  Crucifix,  and  so  the 
time  will  not  have  been  without  fruit. 

One  word  on  what  we  call  bad  meditations.  They  are 
generally  the  most  fruitful.  The  mere  persevering  at  our 
priedieu  the  full  time  is  an  excellent  and  meritorious  act 
of  obedience.  The  mystery,  which  seems  to  lay  no  hold 
of  us,  is  in  reality  soaking  into  our  minds,  and  keeping 
us  throughout  the  day  more  in  the  presence  of  God  than 
we  otherwise  should  have  been.  We  ask  something  of 
God,  and  that  is  in  itself  a  great  action.  We  make  a 
resolution  of  some  kind,  and  we  meet  with  an  occasion  of 
humiliation.  God  often  thus  sends  us  back,  as  a  master 
turns  back  a  boy,  to  re-examine  our  course  and  to  discover 
little  forgotten  infidelities  for  which  we  have  never  done 
penance.  Whenever  we  have  made  a  bad  meditation, 
and  cannot  see  that  it  is  our  own  fault,  we  may  be  sure 
God  means  something  by  it,  and  it  is  our  own  business 
to  find  out  what.  It  is  no  little  thing  to  be  able  to  endure 
ourselves  and  our  own  imperfections.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  a  fine  act  of  humility,  and  draws  us  on  towards  per- 
fection. In  good  truth  we  may  make  our  bad  medita- 
tions pay  us  a  usurious  interest,  if  we  choose. 

It  is  obvious  that  much  of  what  has  been  said  of  the 
Ignatian  method  is  applicable  to  all  methods,  in  the  way 
of  dhestion  and  guidance.  In  speaking  of  the  Sulpician 
method,  therefore,  I  shall  confine  myself  to  those  things 
which  distinguish  it  from  the  other.  M.  Olier  divides 
prayer  into  three  parts,  the  preparation,  the  body  of  the 
prayer,  and  the  conclusion ;   and  he  generally  uses  the 


PRAYER.  257 

word  prayer  instead  of  meditation;  and  tilled  with  the 
spirit  of  the  old  tradition,  he  and  his  interpreters  recur 
to  S.  Ambrose,  St.  John  Climacus,  S.  Nilus,  Cassian,  and 
similar  writers  for  rules  and  methods.  They  make  three 
preparations,  the  more  remote,  the  less  remote,  and  the 
proximate.  The  first  is  occupied  in  removing  obstacles, 
the  second  in  preparing  what  is  necessary  for  praying 
well,  and  the  third  is  as  it  were  the  entrance  into  prayer. 
The  more  remote  preparation  may  be  said  to  extend  over 
the  whole  of  life,  and  is  principally  occupied  with  three 
obstacles  :  sin,  the  passions,  and  the  thought  of  creatures. 
No  soul  in  a  state  of  sin  can  converse  familiarly  with  God. 
The  unquiet  movements  of  human  passions  prevent  inward 
peace  which  is  a  necessary  condition  of  mental  prayer; 
and  the  thought  of  creatures  is  the  foundation  of  all  dis- 
sipation and  distraction.  Thus  the  abandonment  of  sin, 
the  mortification  of  the  passions,  and  the  custody  of  the 
senses,  form  the  more  remote  preparation  for  prayer.  The 
less  remote  preparation  is  concerned  with  three  times,  the 
time  when  the  subject  of  prayer  is  given  over-night,  the 
time  which  elapses  between  then  and  the  waking  in  the 
morning,  and  the  third  is  from  our  waking  to  our  begin- 
ning our  prayer.  The  first  requires  attention ;  the  second 
a  review  of  the  subject  and  a  strict  silence ;  and  the  third 
the  affections  of  love  and  joy  wherewith  we  should  ap- 
proach prayer.  The  proximate  preparation  is  almost  a 
part  of  the  prayer  itself.  It  comprises  three  acts  :  first, 
the  putting  of  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  God  ;  secondly, 
acknowledging  ourselves  unworthy  to  appear  in  His  pre- 
sence; and  thirdly,  confessing  ourselves  incapable  of 
praying  as  we  ought  without  the  aid  of  divine  grace.  For 
each  of  these  three  preparations  very  minute  rules  are 
22*  » 


258  PRAYER. 

given,  which  are  all  taken  from  ancient  sources,  partica 
larly  St.  Gregory,  St.  Chrysostom,  St.  Bonaventure,  St 
Nilus,  St.  Bernard,  and  St.  Benedict. 

But  it  is  in  the  body  of  the  prayer  that  its  chief  cha- 
racteristics  are  to  be  found.  It  consists,  as  the  Ignatian 
does,  of  three  points;  the  first  is  called  adoration,  the 
second  communion,  and  the  third  co-operation.  In  the 
first  we  adore,  praise,  love,  and  thank  God.  In  the 
second  we  try  to  transfer  to  our  own  hearts  what  we  have 
been  praising  and  loving  in  God,  and  to  participate  in  its 
virtue  according  to  our  measure.  In  the  third  we  co- 
operate with  the  grace  we  are  receiving  by  fervent  collo- 
quies and  generous  resolutions.  The  ancient  fathers  have 
handed  down  to  us  this  method  of  prayer  as  in  itself  a 
perfect  compendium  of  Christian  perfection.  They  call 
it  having  Jesus  before  their  eyes,  which  is  the  adoration ; 
Jesus  in  their  hearts,  which  is  the  communion;  and  Jesus 
in  their  hands,  which  is  the  co-operation :  and  in  these 
three  things  all  the  Christian  life  consists.  After  their 
accustomed  fashion,  they  deduce  it  from  the  precept  of 
God  to  the  children  of  Israel,  that  the  words  of  the  law 
were  to  be  before  their  eyes,  in  their  hearts,  and  bound 
upon  their  hands.  Thus  St.  Ambrose  calls  these  three 
points  the  three  seals.  The  adoration  he  calls  signaculum 
in  fronte  ut  semper  confiteamur;  the  communion,  signa- 
culum in  corde  ut  semper  diligamus ;  and  the  co-operation, 
signaculum  in  brachio,  ut  semper  operemur.  Others 
again  declare  that  this  method  of  prayer  is  according  to 
the  model  which  our  Lord  has  given  us.  Thus  the  ado- 
ration answers  to  Hallowed  be  Thy  Name,  the  commu- 
nion to  Thy  kingdom  come,  and  the  co-operation  to  Thy 
will  be  done.     It  seems  that  this  method  of  prayer  is,  as 


PRATER.  259 

far  as  we  can  judge,  the  same  which  prevailed  among  t£e 
fathers  of  the  desert;  and  it  is  astonishing  how  many  scraps 
of  ancient  tradition  there  are  regarding  it.*  Its  patristic 
character  is  quite  the  distinguishing  feature  of  the  Sulpi- 
eian  method  of  prayer.  It  is  a  piece  of  the  older  spiri- 
tuality of  the  Church. 

The  first  point  then  is  adoration.  Here  we  contem- 
plate the  subject  of  our  meditation  in  Jesus,  and  worship 
Him  because  of  it  in  a  befitting  way.  Hence  there  are 
two  things  to  be  observed  in  this  first  point.  Suppose, 
to  take  the  instance  given  by  Tronson,  that  we  are  medi- 
tating on  humility.  In  this  point  we  first  of  all  consider 
Jesus  as  humble,  and  in  this  consideration  we  include 
three  things :  our  Lord's  interior  dispositions  about  humi- 
lity, the  words  He  said,  and  the  actions  He  did.  Secondly, 
we  lay  at  His  feet  six  offerings :  adoration,  admiration, 
praise,  love,  joy,  and  gratitude ;  sometimes  going  through 
all  of  them,  sometimes  selecting  such  as  harmonize  with 
the  subject  of  our  prayer.  This  point  is  extremely  im- 
portant, as  it  leads  us  first  to  contemplate  our  Blessed 
Lord  as  the  source  of  all  virtues ;  secondly,  to  regard  Him 
as  the  original  and  exemplar,  of  which  grace  is  to  make 
us  copies ;  thirdly,  of  the  two  ends  of  prayer,  which  Ter- 
tullian  calls  the  veneration  of  God  and  the  petition  of 
man,  the  first  he  says  is  the  more  perfect;  fourthly,  St 
Gregory  Nyssen  says  that  if  we  look  only  to  our  own  in- 
terests, of  the  two  roads  which  lead  k>  perfection,  prayer, 
and  imitation,  the  first  is  the  shortest,  the  aiGst  efficacious, 

*  I  may  remark  by  the  way  that  it  is  unfortunate  that  Honoratua 
a  Sancta  Maria,  who  collected  the  tradition  of  the  fathers  on  several 
supernatural  states  of  prayer,  should  have  taken  the  wrong  side  in 
the  great  controversy  of  charity,  and  so  should  have  disfigured  his 
book,  and  blunted  the  effect  of  his  evidence. 


260  PRAYER. 

and  the  most  solid.  Speaking  of  the  efficacy  of  adoration 
as  a  part  of  prayer,  the  Fathers  use  this  comparison. 
They  say  we  may  dye  a  white  cloth  scarlet  in  two  ways, 
first  by  applying  the  colour  to  it,  and  secondly,  by  steep- 
ing it  in  the  dye ;  and  the  last  is  the  shortest  and  makes 
the  colour  fastest :  so  to  dip  our  souls  in  the  dye  of  the 
Heart  of  Jesus  by  love  and  adoration,  is  a  quicker  way 
to  imbue  them  with  a  virtue  than  multiplied  acts  of  the 
virtue  itself  would  be.  The  reader  will  see  that  this 
doctrine  is  peculiar,  and  seems  at  first  sight  to  differ 
from  the  ordinary  tone  of  modern  books.  This  method 
of  adoration  is  with  slight  modifications  applicable  to  all 
tbe  six  usual  subjects  of  meditation,  the  attributes  and 
perfectiu-ns  of  God,  the  mysteries  and  virtues  of  Jesus,  the 
actions  at  ihe  saints,  the  virtues,  the  vices,  and  Christian 
verities. 

The  seoona  point  is  communion,  by  which  we  endeavour 
to  participate  hi  what  we  have  been  loving  and  admiring 
in  the  first.  It  contains  three  things.  We  have  first  of 
all  to  convince  ourselves  that  the  grace  we  desire  to  ask  il 
important  to  us,  and  we  should  try  to  convince  ourselves 
of  this  chiefly  by  motives  of  faith.  The  second  thing  is 
to  see  how  greatly  we  are  wanting  in  that  grace  at  pre- 
sent, and  how  many  opportunities  of  acquiring  it  we  have 
wasted.  In  this  temper  we  must  consider  the  past,  the 
present,  and  the  future.  The  third  and  chief  thing  is 
the  petition  itself  for  the  grace  in  question;  and  this  pe- 
tition may  take  four  shapes,  the  types  of  which  are  in 
Scripture.  First,  it  may  be  simple  petition:  petitiones 
vestrae  innotescant  apud  Deum.  Secondly,  it  may  be 
obsecration,  which  is  the  adding  of  some  motive  or  adju- 
ration to  our  demand,  no  by  the  merits  of  our  Lord,  or  the 


PRAYER.  261 

graces  of  our  Lady  .  in  omni  obsecration e,  as  the  apostle 
Bpeaks.  Thirdly,  it  may  be  by  thanksgiving,  cum  gra- 
tiarum  actione ;  for  the  saints  tell  us  that  thanksgiving 
for  past  graces  is  the  most  efficacious  petition  for  new 
ones.  Fourthly3  it  may  be  by  insinuation,  as  when  the 
sisters  of  Lazarus  said  no  more  than,  Lord,  he  whom 
Thou  lovest  is  sick.  All  these  petitions  must  be  accom- 
panied by  four  conditions  :  humility,  confidence,  perseve- 
rance, and  the  union  of  others  in  our  prayers ;  as  our  Lord 
teaches  us  to  pray  for  our,  not  my,  daily  bread,  and  for 
give  w$,  not  we,  our  trespasses.  St.  Nilus  lays  great  stress 
on  this  last  particular,  and  says  it  is  the  fashion  in  which 
the  angels  pray. 

The  third  point  is  the  co-operation,  in  which  we  make 
our  resolutions.  Now  three  things  are  required  in  these 
resolutions,  that  they  should  be  particular,  that  they  should 
be  present,  that  they  should  be  efficacious.  They  must  be 
particular,  because  general  ones  are  of  very  little  use  ex- 
cept in  union  with  particular  ones.  They  must  be  pre- 
sent, that  is,  we  must  have  some  application  of  our  reso- 
lution present  to  our  minds,  as  likely  to  occur  that  day 
They  must  be  efficacious,  that  is,  our  subsequent  care  must 
be  to  carry  them  out  with  great  fidelity,  and  fully  to  in- 
tend to  do  so  by  an  explicit  intention  at  the  time  we  make 
them. 

The  conclusion  of  the  prayer  consists  of  three  things, 
all  of  which  must  be  very  briefly  performed.  First  we 
must  thank  God  for  the  graces  He  has  given  us  in  our 
prayer,  the  grace  of  having  endured  us  in  His  presence, 
of  having  given  us  the  ability  to  pray,  and  of  all  the 
good  thoughts  and  emotions  we  have  experienced.  Se- 
condly we  must  ask  pardon  for  the  faults  we  have  com- 


262  PRAYER. 

mitted  in  our  prayer,  negligence,  lukewarmness,  distrac- 
tion, inattention,  and  restlessness.  Thirdly  we  must  put 
it  all  into  our  Lady's  hands  to  offer  it  to  God,  to  supply 
all  defects,  and  to  obtain  all  blessings.  Then  follows  the 
spiritual  nosegay  of  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  which  St.  Nilus 
appears  to  have  been  the  first  to  suggest  to  men  of  prayer. 

The  Carmelite  method,  as  given  by  John  of  Jesus- 
Mary,  forbids  any  minute  composition  of  place,  and  re- 
commends onjy  one  point  of  meditation.  Its  component 
parts  are  adoration,  oblation,  thanksgiving,  petition  and 
intercession ;  but  he  would  not  have  us  take  them  always 
in  the  same  order,  but  take  that  first  which  chances  to  be 
most  congenial  to  the  subject  on  which  we  are  meditating. 
On  the  whole  it  seems  true  to  say  that  the  contemplative 
orders  hold  more  to  the  ancient  or  as  I  have  called  it  the 
Sulpician  method,  than  to  the  Ignatian ;  and  all  methods 
seem  resolvable  into  one  or  other  of  the  two. 

These  two  methods  of  prayer  are  both  of  them  most 
holy,  even  though  they  are  so  different.  There  is  a 
different  spirit  in  them,  and  they  tend  to  form  different 
characters.  But  they  cannot  be  set  one  against  the  other. 
They  are  both  from  one  Spirit,  even  the  H  oly  Ghost,  and 
e&ch  will  find  the  hearts  to  which  they  are  sent.  Happy 
IP  the  man  who  is  a  faithful  disciple  of  either ! 

But  the  class  of  persons  for  whom  I  am  writing  require 
something  more  than  these  methods  of  meditation,  with- 
out their  approaching  any  of  what  are  called  the  superna- 
tural states  of  prayer.  Many  pass  beyond  meditation, 
most  men  slowly,  but  some  rapidly ;  and  when  a  man's 
whole  life  is  taken  up  with  God,  his  studies  principally 
spiritual  books,  his  occupations  chiefly  religious,  he  often 
finds  that  meditation  is  no  longer  the  right  sort  of  prayer 


PRAYER.  268 

for  him,  and  that  he  must  practise  what  ascetical  writers 
call  affective  prayer.  Of  this,  therefore,  I  must  say  some- 
thing. 

The  passage  from  meditation  to  affective  prayer  is 
a  crisis  in  the  spiritual  life.  For  we  may  leave  meditation 
too  soon,  or  we  may  leave  it  too  late,  or  we  may  refuse  to 
leave  it  at  all,  even  when  our  Lord  is  bidding  us  go  higher 
up.  All  these  three  mistakes  are  fraught  with  injury  to 
the  soul.  By  the  first  we  fall  into  delusions,  by  the  se- 
cond we  lose  time,  by  the  third  we  forfeit  grace.  Spiritual 
writers  give  us  the  following  signs  that  it  is  time  for  us  to 
pass  to  affective  prayer.  First,  when  we  are  unable  to 
meditate,  and  feel  drawn  to  affections.  Secondly,  when, 
do  what  we  will,  we  get  no  fruit  from  our  meditation  but 
weariness  and  disgust.  Thirdly,  which  I  would  dwell 
upon  particularly,  when  we  are  so  thoroughly  penetrated 
with  the  truths  of  religion  and  the  maxims  of  Jesus,  that 
we  find  it  hard  to  occupy  our  understanding  upon  them 
in  prayer,  but  pass  instantaneously  and  as  it  were  un- 
avoidably into  affections  of  the  will.  Fourthly,  when  we 
have  made  some  progress  in  the  horror  of  sin,  the  in- 
difference to  amusements,  the  avoiding  of  occasions  of 
danger,  moderation  of  speech,  and  mortification  of  the 
senses.  Then  we  may  begin  by  little  and  little  to  curtail 
the  use  of  memory  and  understanding  in  our  prayer,  and 
concentrate  ourselves  upon  the  affections  of  the  will ;  and 
so  by  safe  degrees  we  shall  pass  from  meditation  to  affective 
prayer. 

Courbon  thus  describes  the  difference  between  these  two 
states  of  jrayer.  In  the  state  of  meditation  we  reason 
upon  some  subject,  or  ruminate  on  a  text,  or  reflect  on 
Borne  truth,  or  meditate  on  some  mystery,  for  the  purpose 


bA  prayer. 

of  eliciting  affections  on  these  subjects.  In  affective 
prayer  reasonings  and  reflections  have  all  ceased,  and  the 
soul  proceeds  of  its  own  accord  to  elicit  all  the  necessary 
affections.  Again,  in  meditation  the  soul  produces  these 
affections  with  a  certain  amount  of  pain  and  labour,  and 
has  to  keep  its  attention  fixed ;  whereas  in  affective  prayer 
this  operation  costs  us  no  trouble,  but  comes  freely  and 
spontaneously.  So  that  affective  prayer  is  superior  to 
meditation  in  ardour,  constancy,  and  continuity. 

When  we  have  made  the  change  at  the  right  time  and 
in  the  right  way,  the  fruits  of  this  new  prayer  very  soon 
become  visible  in  the  soul.  The  first  is  a  great  love  of 
God,  breaking  forth  in  acts  of  the  love  of  preference, 
complacence,  and  benevolence,  and  in  works  of  effective 
love.  The  next  are  a  desire  to  do  God's  will,  a  burning 
zeal  for  His  glory,  a  keen  appetite  for  communion,  a 
hankering  after  solitude,  an  avidity  to  know  more  about 
God,  a  love  of  speaking  of  God,  an  increase  of  courage, 
a  desire  to  die,  a  zeal  for  souls,  and  a  contempt  of  the 
world.  At  the  same  time  this  kind  of  prayer  has  its 
own  peculiar  dangers.  We  are  apt  to  exhaust  ourselves 
by  the  vehemence  of  immoderate  affections,  to.  make  de- 
votion consist  wholly  of  fervid  feelings,  to  imagine  we 
are  feeling  what  the  saints  felt,  to  believe  that  everything 
we  do  is  done  by  an  inspiration,  to  be  too  active  and  pre- 
cipitate in  our  good  works,  and  to  be  indiscreet  in  our  zeal. 
In  affective  prayer  distractions  tease  us  more  sensibly  than 
in  meditation,  because  our  understanding  is  less  occupied. 
The  subtraction  of  sweetness  is  far  more  sensibly  felt  \ 
and  the  world  and  the  devil  combine  to  attack  us  with 
greater  energy  than  before.  Above  all,  we  are  peculiarly 
liable,  to  a  degree  which  surprises  us,  to  vanity,  anger, 


PRAYER.  265 

and  want  of  custody  of  the  senses.  Against  these,  how- 
ever, we  may  set  the  supernatural  favours  which  usually 
accompany  this  state  of  prayer;  such  as  the  gift  of  tears, 
interior  colloquies,  touches  of  the  soul,  the  languor  of 
love,  the  liquefaction  of  the  soul  in  God,  the  wound  of 
love,  the  glimpses  of  our  own  nothingness,  and  the  super 
abundance  of  spiritual  sweetness.  But  full  instruction  or 
these  points  belongs  to  a  treatise  on  prayer.  Enough  has 
been  said  of  mental  prayer  for  our  present  purpose.  It 
remains  to  speak  of  vocal  prayer. 

It  is  one  of  the  marks  of  false  spirituality,  as  appears 
from  the  Condemned  Propositions,  to  make  light  of  vocal 
prayer.  It  is  the  universal  custom  of  the  faithful,  even 
if  it  be  not  necessary  to  salvation,  as  St.  Thomas  says  it 
is  not.  St.  Augustine  seems  to  hold  the  contrary 
opinion,  and  gives  as  a  reason  the  model  which  our 
Saviour  gave  us.  It  is,  however,  says  St.  Thomas,  of  im- 
mense utility,  and  that  for  three  reasons.  It  awakens 
interior  devotion,  and  sustains  it  when  awakened.  We 
ought  to  honour  God  with  all  His  gifts,  and  voice  is  His 
gift  as  well  as  mind.  It  forms  a  vent  for  interior  devo- 
tion, which  increases  in  vehemence  by  means  of  the  very 
vent.  In  vocal  prayer  three  attentions  are  requisite, 
though  not  always  all  of  them  at  once,  attention  to  the 
order  and  pronunciation  of  the  words,  attention  to  the 
meaning  of  the  words,  and  attention  to  the  end  of  the 
words  which  is  Him  to  whom  we  address  them,  and  that 
for  which  we  are  petitioning. 

Speaking  in  a  rough  way  there  are  commonly  four 
kinds  of  vocal  prayer,  with  a  book,  without  a  book,  in- 
tercessory, and  ejaculatory.  If  we  pray  from  a  prayer- 
book  *t  is  well  to  have  only  one  book  at  a  time,  and  not 
23 


266  PRATER. 

to  change  it  frequently.  We  should  read  with  pauses, 
occasionally  closing  the  book  and  resting  on  the  thought 
of  God  j  and  we  should  be  careful  not  to  choose  a  book 
which  is  much  above  our  real  feelings  and  present  attain- 
ments. If  we  pray  without  a  book,  we  must  be  brief 
and  of  few  words,  because  of  God's  majesty;  we  must 
scrupulously  use  words  with  forethought,  and  interpose 
silent  intervals  in  our  prayers.  In  the  matter  of  inter- 
cessory prayer,  we  must  be  cautious  of  promising  people 
we  will  pray  for  them.  We  must  be  wary  of  perpetual 
or  multiplied  novenas.  We  must  never  fix  a  definite 
length  of  time  for  which  we  will  pray  for  an  object,  and 
abandon  it  then  if  God  has  not  vouchsafed  to  hear  our 
prayers.  And  in  our  intercession  a  prominent  place  must 
always  be  given  to  the  Holy  Father,  and  his  intention? 
for  the  needs  of  the  Church.  Ejaculatory  prayers  should 
be  frequent,  but  generally  speaking  not  under  rule  or  of 
obligation.  They  must  be  almost  incessant  in  times  of 
temptation,  and  it  is  desirable  always  to  have  some  chosen 
ones  ready. 

There  are  many  cautions  which  are  necessary  in  the 
use  of  vocal  prayer.  We  must  be  careful  not  to  burden 
ourselves  with  too  many  of  them,  and  it  is  well  to  begin 
them  always  with  a  mental  act  of  the  divine  presence. 
When  we  have  given  way  to  distractions,  and  our  atten- 
tion has  been  imperceptibly  averted  from  what  we  are 
saying,  and  at  last  we  wake  up  to  a  consciousness  of  it,  it 
very  much  concerns  our  peace  of  mind,  that  we  should 
not  say  over  again  what  we  said  with  inattention.  We 
must  simply  stop  and  make  an  act  of  contrition,  and  so 
proceed.  The  opposite  conduct  gives  rise  to  many  scruples, 
and  ends  by  making  vocal  prayer  burdensome  and  odious. 


PRAYER.  267 

When  slovenly  habits  have  crept  ./ver  us,  we  must  set  mat 
ters  right  by  disallowing  ourselves  in  certain  liberties  which 
we  have  taken,  and  so  cure  our  slovenliness  by  taking  a 
few  steps  in  the  direction  of  the  other  extreme.  Thus, 
if  we  have  been  in  the  habit  of  saying  vocal  prayers  out 
of  doors,  or  walking  about,  or  in  bed,  and  some  percep- 
tible negligence  has  come  of  it,  it  is  better  for  a  little 
while  to  abstain  from  doing  so,  and  say  them  in  our  own 
room,  or  kneeling,  or  in  some  slightly  penitential  way. 
We  must  not  forget  that  this  blessed  right  of  vocal 
prayer  is  not  only  a  frequent  source  of  scruples,  but  even 
a  most  prolific  occasion  of  venial  sin ;  and  it  is  so  almost 
always  from  want  of  reverence  and  forethought.  Hence 
we  should  never  begin  with  a  probable  interruption 
staring  us  in  the  face,  and  we  should  keep  a  strict  custody 
over  our  eyes.  It  is  said  of  St.  Charles  Borromeo  that 
ne  would  not  say  off  by  heart  the  more  familiar  parts  of 
the  missal  and  breviary,  because  he  considered  that  his 
keeping  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  book,  and  reading  the  words 
so  much  conduced  to  devotion. 

It  is  well  to  meditate  occasionally  on  the  dignity  of 
vocal  prayers,  and  the  communion  of  saints  into  which  we 
enter  by  reciting  them,  especially  in  such  world-wide  de- 
votions as  the  rosary,  and  scapular-prayers.  They  who 
are  much  addicted  to  vocal  prayer  should  cultivate  a  spe- 
cial devotion  to  the  angels  before  the  throne  of  God,  who 
are  ever  offering  in  their  sweet  thuribles  the  prayers  of 
the  just  to  His  compassionate  majesty.  We  must  remem- 
ber that,  while  other  means  do  not  always  apply  to  all 
eases,  prayer  has  not  only  a  fitness  but  a  special  fitness  for 
all  cases.  Some  persons,  when  they  have  prayed  for  some 
virtue  or  against  some  vice  or  temptation  for  a  long  while, 


268  PRAYER. 

grow  disheartened  and  leave  off.  The  devil  suggests  to 
them  that  their  prayers  will  not  be  heard,  not  for  lack  of 
goodness  in  God,  but  because  they  are  unworthy  to  be 
heard,  and  that  it  is  true  humility  in  them  to  think  so. 
But  in  truth  such  an  abasement  of  spirit  is  not  humility, 
but  a  delusion  contrary  both  to  faith  and  hope;  for  this 
theological  truth  is  very  much  to  be  remembered,  that 
prayer  rests  solely  on  God's  goodness,  and  not  at  all 
on  our  merits.  Those  who  find  themselves  inapt  at 
mental  prayer  should  cultivate  vocal.  But  if  we  have 
taken  upon  ourselves  a  burden  of  much  vocal  prayer, 
and  find  ourselves  growing  inattentive  in  spite  of  our- 
selves, we  must  lessen  the  quantity  gradually,  compen- 
sating for  this  by  a  more  arduous  effort  of  attention. 
As  a  general  rule  it  is  best  to  have  only  a  little  vocal 
prayer,  but  to  persevere  in  that  little  with  extreme  fide- 
lity. St.  Theresa  says,  that  comfortable  postures  are 
best  for  mental  prayer,  penitential  postures  for  vocal. 
Under  any  circumstances  reverential  postures  are  half  the 
battle  of  vocal  prayer.  If  a  mau  finds  vocal  prayer  an  aid 
to  inward  recollection,  it  is  a  sign  he  has  a  vocation  to  it; 
but  St.  Thomas  says,  if  it  be  a  hindrance  to  inward  recol- 
lection, he  had  best  abandon  what  is  not  of  obligation 
Finally,  those  who  have  for  a  long  time  been  tepidly 
neglecting  meditation,  have  np  better  means  to  refresh 
themselves,  and  so  get  back  to  mental  prayer,  than  by 
giving  themselves  up  for  a  season  to  habits,  perhaps  long 
abandoned,  of  childlike  vocal  prayer. 

Now  a  few  words  on  answers  to  prayer,  a  subject  which 
teases  so  many  devout  souls.  St.  Bernard  says  in  his 
Lent  sermons  that  all  bad  prayers  are  bad  for  one  of  three 
reasons :  either  they  are  timid,  c  r  they  are  tepid,  or  they 


PRAYER.  269 

are  temerarious.  We  may  dismiss  therefore  these  three 
kinds  of  prayer  as  not  likely  to  be  answered.  Answers 
to  prayer  have  several  characteristics  which  we  ought  to 
bear  in  mind.  For  the  most  part  they  are  long  in  coming; 
and  the  thing  asked,  when  it  does  come,  comes  often  in 
another  shape;  and  as  often,  something  else  comes  in- 
stead of  it.  Answers  come  quickest  when  the  prayer  is 
secret  and  undivulged,  or  when  crosses  are  asked  for,  so 
we  nc  :ist  be  cautious,  or  when  we  ask  through  our  Blessed 
Lady,  or  as  St.  Catherine  of  Bologna  tells  us,  through  the 
Souls  in  Purgatory/ or  as  S.  Theresa  tells  us,  through  St. 
Joseph.  It  is  false  spirituality  which  teaches  us  not  to 
pray,  and  to  pray  perse veringly,  for  the  good  of  indivi- 
duals. But  our  power  of  impetration  depends  very  much 
on  two  things,  our  having  habits  of  prayer  and  being  in 
habitual  communication  with  God,  and  our  praying  in  the 
pure  spirit  of  simple  faith. 

We  always  receive  three  gifts  from  God  when  we  pray 
humbly  and  earnestly.  The  first,  S.  Nilus  says,  is  the 
gift  of  prayer  itself.  u  God  wishes  to  bless  thee  for  a 
longer  time  while  thou  art  persevering  in  thy  prayer;  for 
what  more  blessed  than  to  be  detained  in  colloquy  with 
God?"  We  pretend  for  awhile  not  to  hear  the  petitions 
of  those  we  love,  because  we  so  love  to  hear  them  asking. 
So  Joseph  feigned  with  his  brethren.  You  say,  says  St. 
John  Climacus,  I  have  received  nothing  from  God,  when 
all  the  while  you  have  received  one  of  His  greatest  gifts, 
perseverance  in  prayer.  It  is  often  because  He  so  loves 
prayer,  that  God  delays  to  answer  it.  The  second  gift  is 
the  increase  of  our  merits  by  persevering  in  unanswered 
prajer.  He  delays  to  hear  His  saints,  says  St.  Gregory, 
that  He  may  increase  their  merits.  Eo  magis  exaudiun 
23* 


^YO  PRAYER. 

tur  ad  meritum,  quo  citius  non  exauliuntur  ad  votum 
The  third  gift  is  that  by  this  perseverance  we  prepare  our- 
selves to  receive  the  grace  with  much  greater  fruit  than 
if  it  were  given  us  at  once.  S.  Isidore  says,  God  delays 
to  hear  your  prayer  either  because  you  are  not  in  good 
dispositions  to  receive  what  you  ask,  or  that  you  may  be 
able  to  receive  more  excellent  gifts  which  he  is  desirous 
of  conferring  upon  you.  So,  says  Gerson,  it  happens  to 
us  as  it  does  sometimes  to  a  beggar,  to  whom  men  give  a 
more  liberal  alms  because  they  have  kept  him  waiting  at 
their  door  so  long.  Moreover  the  relics  of  our  old  un- 
converted lives,  not  yet  burned  out  of  us,  cause  prayer  to 
operate  more  slowly  than  if  our  penance  had  been  more 
brisk  and  vigorous. 

Mystical  writers  give  us  various  signs  by  which  we  may 
know,  even  at  the  time,  that  our  prayers  have  been  an- 
swered. We  often  have  an  heroic  confidence  that  our 
prayers  have  been  answered,  without  knowing  to  what  we 
may  attribute  it,  and  when  this  confidence  is  coupled  with 
a  great  love  of  God,  a  contempt  of  ourselves,  and  an  almost 
irresistible  propensity  to  break  forth  into  thanksgiving, 
we  may  for  the  most  part  assume  that  our  prayer  has  been 
answered.  Very  often  this  confidence  is  preceded  by  a 
vehement  inspiration  to  pray  for  the  object  in  question, 
and  God,  says  St.  Augustine,  would  not  thus  impel  us  to 
pray  for  a  thing  He  was  not  about  to  grant.  Sometimes 
God  sends  in  addition  to  these  internal  marks  an  outward 
sign  in  the  shape  of  a  sorrow  or  disgrace ;  such  were  the 
rebuke  of  Heli  to  Anna,  and  of  our  Lord  to  Mary  at  the 
marriage  feast  in  Cana,  and  of  our  Lord  to  the  Chanansean 
woman.  They  were  the  precursors  of  answered  prayer. 
As  Job  says,  He  who  is  mocked  by  his  friend  as  I  am, 


PRAYER.  271 

iv ill  call  upon  God,  and  He  will  hear  him.  Richard  of  St. 
Victor  mentions  an  unusual  strength  of  faith,  or  depth  of 
humility,  or  earnestness  of  importunity,  as  inward  signs 
of  answered  prayer.  But  S.  Bonaventure  fears  that  in 
judging  of  them  we  may  too  readily  attribute  to  the  Holy 
Ghost  what  are  only  the  movements  of  excited  nature. 
Lastly  St.  Ambrose  gives  the  following  rule.  In  comment- 
ing on  the  words,  If  two  of  you  shall  agree  upon  earth, 
concerning  anything  whatsoever  they  shall  ask,  it  shall 
be  done  for  them  by  My  Father  who  is  in  heaven  :  for 
where  there  are  two  or  three  gathered  together  in  My 
Name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them,  he  says,  What 
are  these  two  or  three  but  the  body,  the  soul,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost?  For  when  the  soul  collects  all  its  interior  powers 
within  the  sanctuary  of  its  heart,  that  it  may  pray  to  the 
Father  in  secret,  and  when  the  body  collects  its  external 
senses  and  unites  them  to  the  soul,  the  Holy  Spirit  ap- 
proaches and  breathes  into  this  union  quietude  and  peace, 
so  that  the  prayer  may  be  fervent  and  efficacious;  and  then 
it  is  that  Jesus  is  present  in  the  midst  of  the  three. t  0 
happy  union  in  which  so  many  combine  to  supplicate  the 
Eternal  Father!  What  more  could  be  desired,  what  more 
efficacious  be  proposed?  Delight  in  the  Lord,  and  He  will 
grant  thee  thy  petitions,  says  David.  For  if  it  is  your  joy 
to  please  God,  it  will  be  His  joy  to  hear  your  prayers. 

We  must  be  careful  however  not  to  fret  ourselves  over- 
much about  the  answers  to  our  prayers.  We  should 
pray  in  faith  and  with  a  deep  sense  of  our  own  unworthi- 
ness,  and  leave  the  rest  to  God.  Even  in  a  self-interested 
pcint  of  view  no  prayer  has  such  a  power  of  impetration 
as  that  whieh  comes  from  a  will  conformed  to  the  will  of 


272  PRAYER.  • 

God.     This  was  the  secret  of  St.  Gertrude's  potent  inter 
cession. 

There  is  one  subject  more  which  demands  our  atten. 
tion  when  we  are  speaking  of  vocal  prayer.  A  man  who 
is  much  given  to  vocal  prayer  is  in  no  slight  degree  in 
the  power  of  his  prayer-book.*  The  choice  of  favourite 
devotions  is  therefore  a  matter  of  great  importance;  and 
what  devotions  can  we  choose  so  safely  as  those  which 
are  approved  by  the  Church,  and  those  which  are  indul- 
genced  by  the  Church.  There  is  a  great  connection  be- 
tween indulgences  and  the  spiritual  life,  and  the  use  of 
indulgenced  devotions  is  almost  an  infallible  test  of  a 
good  catholic.  St.  Alphonso  says  that  in  order  to  become 
a  saint  nothing  more  is  needed  than  to  gain  all  the  in- 
dulgences we  can;  and  the  Blessed  Leonard  of  Port 
Maurice  has  something  to  the  same  effect.  The  private 
and  approved  revelations  of  the  Saints  throw  consider- 
able light  upon  this  subject.  St.  Bridget  was  raised  up 
in  great  measure,  as  she  says  herself,  to  propagate  the 
honour  of  indulgences ;  and  so  St.  Mary  Magdalen  of 
Pazzi  saw  souls  punished  in  purgatory  for  nothing  else 
but  a  light  esteem  of  them. 

In  the  spiritual  life  there  are  what  I  may  call  eight 
beatitudes   of  indulgences.     First,   as  they  have   to  do 

*  When  there  are  so  many  excellent  manuals  of  devotion,  it  may 
geetn  invidious  to  single  out  one  for  commendation.  Yet  without 
meaning  in  the  least  to  criticize  others,  I  would  venture  to  call  the 
attention  of  my  readers  to  a  little  hook,  published  by  Messrs.  Burns 
and  Lambert,  under  the  title  of  A  Few  Flowers  from  the  Garden. 
Its  merits  are  that  it  is  simple,  practical,  not  overloaded,  well  se- 
ected,  suitable  to  all,  contains  many  indulgenced  devotions,  and 
nas  evidently  grown  up  from  long  personal  use.  It  is  not  a  fanciful 
or  merely  literary  compilation  :  and  its  merits  will  grow  upon  thou* 
who  use  it. 


PttAYER.  27& 

with  sin,  God's  justice,  and  the  temporal  pain  of  sin, 
they  keep  us  among  thoughts  which  belong  to  the  pur- 
gative way,  and  which  are  safest  for  us,  although  we  are 
continually  and  impatiently  trying  to  get  out  of  them. 
Secondly,  they  have  a  peculiarly  unworldly  effect  upon 
us.  They  lead  us  into  the  invisible  world ;  they  sur- 
round us  with  images  of  a  supernatural  character ;  they 
fill  our  minds  with  a  class  of  ideas,  which  detach  us  from 
worldly  things  and  rebuke  earthly  pleasures.  Thirdly, 
they  keep  the  doctrine  of  purgatory  constantly  before  us, 
and  so  force  upon  us  a  perpetual  exercise  of  faith,  as 
well  as  suggest  to  us  motives  of  holy  fear.  Fourthly, 
they  are  an  exercise  of  charity  to  the  faithful  departed, 
which  may  easily  become  heroic,  which  may  be  practised 
by  those  who  can  give  no  other  alms,  and  which  has  all 
the  effects  upon  our  own  souls  that  accompany  works  of 
mercy.  Fifthly,  God's  glory  is  very  much  concerned  in 
them,  and  that  in  two  ways,  in  the  release  of  the  souls 
from  purgatory  and  their  earlier  admission  to  His  heavenly 
court,  and  also  in  the  manifestation  of  His  perfections 
which  indulgences  display,  such  as  His  infinite  purity 
and  detestation  of  sin,  even  the  slightest,  and  the  exact- 
ness of  His  justice  coupled  with  the  ingenuity  of  His 
mercy.  Sixthly,  they  honour  the  satisfactions  of  Jesus. 
They  are  to  His  satisfactions  what  the  doctrine  that  all 
forgiveness  of  sin  is  due  to  Him  is  to  His  merits.  So 
to  speak,  they  leave  nothing  of  Him  unused ;  and  thus 
they  illustrate  the  copiousness  of  His  redemption.  The;f 
honour  likewise  the  satisfactions  of  Mary  and  the  saints, 
in  such  a  way  as  still  more  to  honour  Him.  Seventhly, 
they  deepen  our  views  of  sin,  and  cause  us  to  grow  in 
horror  of  it.     For  they  constantly  keep  before  us  that 

s 


fti  PRATER. 

punishment  is  due  even  to  forgiven  sin,  and  that  thai 
punishment  is  one  of  the  most  intolerable  kind,  and 
though  it  be  but  temporal,  it  needs  the  satisfactions  of 
Jesus  to  deliver  us  from  it.  Eighthly,  they  keep  us  m 
narmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  Church,  which  is  of  para- 
mount importance  to  those  who  are  striving  to  live  in- 
terior lives,  and  are  threading  their  way  among  the  diffi- 
culties of  asceticism  and  inward  holiness.  For  to  under- 
value indulgences  is  a  sign  of  heresy;  and  the  hatred 
which  heresy  has  for  them  is  an  index  of  the  devil's  dis- 
like of  them,  and  that,  in  its  turn,  is  a  measure  of  their 
power  and  of  their  acceptableness  with  God.  They  mix 
us  up  with  so  many  peculiarities  of  the  Church,  from  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Holy  See  to  the  belief  in  purgatory, 
good  works,  the  saints,  and  satisfaction,  that  they  almost 
insure  our  orthodoxy.  And  the  whole  history  of  the  un- 
happy errors  which  have  vexed  the  Church  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  spiritual  life  shows  us  that,  to  be  thoroughly 
holy,  we  must  be  thoroughly  catholic,  and  thoroughly 
Roman  catholic,  for  otherwise  than  Roman  we  can  be 
neither  catholic  nor  holy  at  all. 

Then,  as  to  the  indulgenced  devotions  themselves,  there 
are  these  advantages  in  them.  "We  are  sure  they  are 
approved  by  the  Church,  because  they  are  more  than 
approved.  We  know  that  numbers  of  holy  souls  in  the 
world  are  using  them  every  day,  and  by  uniting  ourselves 
with  them  we  enter  more  deeply  into  the  communion  of 
saints,  and  the  life  of  the  Church  which  is  her  unity.  For 
the  reasons  I  have  already  given,  we  spiritualize  our  minds 
and  quicken  our  faith  very  much  by  the  use  of  them. 
They  lead  us  to  pray  in  a  manner  and  about  subjects 
which  the  Church  desires ;  and  we  attain  so  many  ends 


PRAYER.  275 

at  once  when  we  use  them.  For  by  the  same  act  we  not 
only  pray,  but  we  revere  the  keys  of  the  Church,  we 
honour  Jesus,  His  Mother  and  the  saints,  we  get  rid  of 
our  own  temporal  punishment,  or,  which  is  a  greater 
fching,  we  release  the  dead  and  so  glorify  God,  and  as  may 
be  seen  by  looking  over  the  devotions  which  the  Church 
has  indulgenced,  we  transfer  into  our  minds  a  great 
amount  of  touching  doctrine  which  serves  as  an  aliment 
for  mental  prayer  and  reverential  love. 

Let  us  take  one  instance  of  this.  I  cannot  conceive  a 
man  being  spiritual  who  does  not  habitually  say  the 
Rosary.  It  may  be  called  the  queen  of  indulgenced  de- 
votions. First  consider  its  importance,  as  a  specially 
catholic  devotion,  as  so  peculiarly  giving  us  a  catholic 
turn  of  mind  by  keeping  Jesus  and  Mary  perpetually 
before  us,  and  as  a  singular  help  to  final  perseverance,  if 
we  continue  the  recital  of  it,  as  various  revelations  show. 
Next  consider  its  institution  by  St.  Dominic  in  1214,  by 
revelation,  for  the  purpose  of  combating  heresy,  and  the 
success  which  attended  it.  Its  matter  and  form  are  not 
less  striking.  Its  matter  consists  of  the  Pater,  the  Ave 
and  the  Gloria,  whose  authors  are  our  Blessed  Lord  Him- 
self, St.  Gabriel,  St.  Elizabeth,  the  Council  of  Ephesus, 
and  the  whole  Church,  led  in  the  west  by  St.  Damasus. 
Its  form  is  a  complete  abridgment  of  £he  Gospel,  consist- 
ing of  fifteen  mysteries  in  decades,  expressing  the  three 
great  phases  of  the  work  of  redemption,  joy,  sorrow,  and 
glory.  Its  peculiarity  is  the  next  attractive  feature  about 
it.  It  unites  mental  with  vocal  prayer.  It  is  a  devotional 
compendium  of  theology.  It  is  an  efficacious  practice  of 
the  presence  of  God.  It  is  one  chief  channel  of  the 
traditions  of  the  Incarnation  among  the  faithful.    It  shows 


276  PRAYER 

the  true  nature  of  devotion  to  our  Blessed  Lady ;  and  is  a 
means  of  realizing  the  communion  of  saints.  Its  ends 
are  the  love  of  Jesus,  reparation  to  the  Sacred  Humanity 
for  the  outrages  of  heresy,  and  a  continual  affectionate 
thanksgiving  to  the  Most  Holy  Trinity  for  the  benefit  of 
the  Incarnation.  It  is  sanctioned  by  the  Church,  by  in- 
dulgences,  by  miracles,  by  the  conversion  of  sinners,  and 
by  the  usage  of  the  saints.  See  also  how  much  the  me- 
thod of  reciting  it  involves.  We  should  first  make  a 
picture  of  the  mystery,  and  always  put  our  Blessed  Lady 
into  the  picture  j  for  the  rosary  is  hers.  We  should  couple 
rome  duty  or  virtue  with  each  mystery ;  and  fix  beforehand 
on  some  soul  in  purgatory  to  whom  to  apply  the  vast  in- 
dulgences. Meanwhile,  we  must  not  strain  our  minds,  or 
be  scrupulous ;  for  to  say  the  Rosary  well  is  quite  a  thing 
which  requires  learning.  Be  member  always,  as  the  Bac- 
colta  teaches,  that  the  fifteenth  mystery  is  the  coronation 
of  Mary,  and  not  merely  the  glory  of  the  saints.  Our 
beads  land  us  and  leave  us  at  the  feet  of  Mary  Crowned. 
I  should  not  wish  to  say  anything  that  would  seem  to 
limit  the  devotion  of  others;  but,  all  things  considered, 
why  should  we  have  any  vocal  prayers  which  are  not  in- 
dulgenced  devotions,  now  that  the  Church  has  indulgencad 
them  in  such  abundance  ? 


TEMPTATIONS.  277 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

TEMPTATIONS. 

Temptations  are  the  raw  material  of  glory;  and  the 
■Management  of  them  is  as  great  a  work  ay  the  government 
:>f  an  empire,  and  requires  a  vigilance  as  incessant  and  as 
universal.  It  is  a  startling  thing  to  look  out  into  the 
world  and  study  its  ways,  and  then  to  think  that  God  was 
made  Man  and  died  upon  the  cross  for  its  redemption. 
But  it  is  equally  startling  to  look  at  the  lives  of  good 
men  and  examine  their  dispositions,  and  then  to  put  one 
of  the  maxims  of  the  Gospel  alongside  of  them.  At  this 
very  hour  thousands  of  souls  are  earnestly  complaining  to 
God  of  their  temptations,  and  hundreds  of  confessionals 
are  filled  with  whispered  and  impatient  murmurings 
against  the  vehemence  or  the  perseverance  of  them.  Yet, 
St.  James  says,  My  brethren,  count  it  all  joy  when  you 
nail  fall  into  divers  temptations.  It  is  plain,  therefore, 
that  we  either  do  not  know  or  do  not  always  bear  in  mind 
the  true  nature  and  character  of  temptations.  They  are 
nearly  as  multitudinous  as  our  thoughts,  and  our  only 
victory  over  them  is  through  persisting  courage,  and  an 
indomitable  spirit  of  cheerfulness.  The  arrows  of  temp- 
tation fall  harmless  and  blunted  from  a  gay  heart,  which 
has  first  of  all  cast  itself  so  low  in  its  humility  that  nothing 
can  cast  it  lower.  Be  joyous,  or,  to  use  scripture  words. 
"  rejoice,  and  again  I  say  rejoice,"  and  you  will  not  heed 
your  temptations,  neither  will  they  harm  you. 
24 


278  TEMPTATIONS. 

But  let  us  obtain  a  clear  idea  of  the  nature  of  tempta- 
tions. It  seems  an  obvious  thing  to  say  that  in  the  first 
place  they  are  not  sins ;  yet  it  nine  cases  out  of  ten  our 
unhappiness  comes  from  not  discerning  this  fact.  Some 
defilement  seems  to  come  from  the  touch  of  a  mere  temp- 
tation j  and  at  the  same  time  it  reveals  to  us,  as  nothing 
else  does,  our  extreme  feebleness  and  constant  need  of 
grace  and  of  very  great  grace.  We  are  like  men  who  do 
not  know  how  sore  their  bruises  are  until  they  are 
pressed,  and  then  we  exaggerate  the  evil.  So  when 
temptation  presses  our  fallen  and  infirm  nature,  the  ten- 
derness is  so  sensible  and  so  acute  that  it  gives  us  at 
once  the  feeling  of  a  wound  or  a  disease.  Yet  we  must 
be  careful  always  to  distinguish  between  a  sin  and  a 
temptation. 

Temptations  are  either  in  ourselves,  or  outside  of  us, 
or  partly  the  one  and  partly  the  other.  Those  from 
within  ourselves  arise,  either  from  our  senses,  which  are 
free  and  undisciplined,  or  from  our  passions  which  are 
wild  and  uncorrected.  Those  which  are  outside  assail  us, 
either  by  delighting  us,  as  riches,  honours,  attachments 
and  distractions,  or  by  attacking  us  as  the  demons-do; 
and  those  which  partake  of  the  nature  of  both  possess  the 
attractions  of  both.  In  one  sense,  however,  all  tempta- 
tions consist  in  an  alliance  between  what  is  within  us,  and 
what  is  without  us.  As  I  have  said  before,  we  must  not 
put  too  much  upon  the  devil ;  yet  neither  on  the  other 
hand  must  we  be  without  fear  of  him,  or  without  a  true 
and  scriptural  estimate  of  his  awful  and  malignant  office. 
He  goes  about  seeking  whom  he  may  devour.  He  is  a 
roaring  lion,  when  the  roar  will  affright  us,  and  a  noiseless 
serpent  when  success  is  to  be  ensured  by  secrecy.    He  has 


TEMPTATIONS.  <I79 

reduced  the  possibilities  and  probabilities  of  our  destruc- 
tion to  a  science  which  he  applies  with  the  most  unrelent- 
ing vigour,  the  most  masterly  intelligence,  almost  unfailing 
power,  and  with  the  most  ubiquitous  variety.  If  it  were 
not  for  the  thought  of  grace,  its  abundance  and  its  sove- 
reignty, we  should  not  dare  to  contemplate  the  ways  and 
means  of  the  Satanic  kingdom. 

Yet  nowhere  is  it  a  mere  fight  between  man  and  the 
devil.  Wherever  temptation  is,  there  God  is  also. 
There  is  not  one  which  His  will  has  not  permitted,  and 
there  is  not  a  permission  which  is  not  an  act  of  love  as 
well.  He  has  given  His  whole  wisdom  to  each  tempta- 
tion. He  has  calculated  its  effects,  and  often  diminishes 
its  power.  He  has  weighed  and  measured  each  by  the 
infirmity  of  each  tempted  soul.  He  has  deliberately  con- 
templated the  consequences  of  each,  in  union  with  its 
circumstances.  The  minutest  feature  has  not  escaped 
Him.  The  most  hidden  danger  has  been  an  element  in 
His  judgment.  All  this  while  the  devil  is  passive  and 
powerless.  He  cannot  lay  a  finger  on  the  child  until  its 
loving  Father  has  prescribed  the  exact  conditions,  and 
has  forewarned  the  soul  by  His  inspirations,  and  fore- 
armed it  with  proportionable  succours  of  grace.  Nothing 
is  at  random,  as  if  temptations  were  hurrying  here  and 
there,  like  the  bullets  in  the  air  of  a  battle-field.  More- 
over, each  temptation  has  its  own  crown  prepared  for  it, 
if  we  correspond  to  grace  and  are  victorious.  I  do  not 
know  any  picture  of  God  more  affecting,  or  more  fatherly, 
than  the  vision  of  Him  which  faith  gives  us  in  His 
assiduous  solicitudes  and  paternal  occupations  while  we 
are  being  tempted.  Where  wert  Thou,  Lord!  while  I 
was  being  tempted?  cried  the  saint  of  the  desert.     Close 


5280  TEMPTATIONS. 

to  you,  my  sou,  all  the  while,  was  the  tender  reply..  As 
men  feel  sorrow  to  be  at  times  a  privilege,  because  it 
draws  them  into  the  sympathies  of  their  superiors,  so  is 
it  a  joy  to  be  tempted  because  it  occupies  God  so  intensely 
and  so  lovingly  with  our  little  interests  and  cares.  The 
highest  saint  in  heaven  can  never  attain  to  love  God,  ai 
He  loves  a  soul  struggling  with  temptations. 

Nevertheless,  temptation  is  exquisite  suffering,  above 
that  of  sickness  and  adversity.  There  is  something  loath- 
some in  the  breath  which  it  breathes  upon  us,  something 
horribly  fascinating  in  its  eye,  and  paralyzing  in  its  touch. 
We  are  faint  and  sick  with  the  sense  of  our  own  corrup- 
tion, and  helpless  weakness ;  and  the  thrilling  interests 
involved  in  our  resisting  or  succumbing  agitate  the  most 
inward  life  of  our  soul.  It  is  foolish  either  to  deny  the 
suffering  or  to  make  light  of  it.  In  either  case  we  shall 
be  less  able  to  endure  it.  It  must  be  in  the  nearness  of 
God,  and  in  the  prompt  superfluity  of  grace,  that  we  must 
find  our  cheerfulness  and  our  consolation. 

With  all  his  wisdom,  the  devil  is  constantly  overreach- 
ing himself  in  temptations,  not  from  stupidity,  though 
perhaps  God  may  stupify  him  from  time  to  time,  but 
from  his  ignorance  of  the  invisible  amount  of  grace  which 
has  been  mercifully  sent  us.  God's  love  is  always  so  far 
above  either  our  merits  or  even  our  expectations,  that 
neither  the  tempter  nor  ourselves  can  ever  come  to  believe 
it  beforehand.  Thus  the  devil  sometimes  tempts  us  too 
openly,  and  we  are  on  our  guard ;  or  he  sends  us  the 
wrong  kind  of  temptation,  as  one  man  sometimes  gets  a 
letter  intended  for  another;  or  he  sends  the  right  temp- 
tation at  the  wrong  time ;  or,  as  he  cannot  always  read 
our  thoughts,  he  puts  a  wrong  interpretation  on  our  oat- 


TEMPTATIONS.  281 

ward  actions;  or  he  leaves  off  too  soon;  or  he  persists  too 
long;  or  he  under-estimates  the  effect  of  penance  and  our 
love  of  God  on  the  old  habits  of  past  sin.  So  it  is  that 
from  one  cause  or  other  he  is  continually  over-reaching 
himself.  This  is  a  fact  to  be  dwelt  upon.  For  there  are 
many  who  would,  if  questioned,  answer  quite  correctly 
about  Satan  and  the  limitations  of  his  power,  who  never- 
theless practically  in  their  own  minds  entertain  a  wrong 
idea  of  him,  and  their  conduct  under  temptation  shows 
the  influence  which  this  false  view  has  upon  them. 
Sometimes  they  are  not  nearly  so  much  grieved  at  their 
falls  as  they  ought  to  be,  and  sometimes  they  are  panic- 
stricken  as  soon  as  they  feel  themselves  in  his  grasp ;  so 
that  for  him  to  touch  them  is  to  conquer  them.  I  am 
persuaded  that  a  great  deal  of  this  is  from  their  being 
possessed,  half  unconsciously,  with  a  wrong  idea  of  the 
devil,  who  acts  upon  them  as  the  dread  of  ghosts  acts 
upon  children,  unreasonably  yet  irresistibly.  They  look 
upon  him  as  God's  rival,  a  sort  of  wicked  god,  with  god- 
like attributes  all  evil,  and  an  omnipotence  of  iniquity 
They  do  not  remember  that  he  is  simply  our  fellow- 
creature,  and  a  conquered  and  blighted  creature.  We 
have  reason  to  fear  him.  Yet  we  are  not  panic-stricken 
with  the  hourly  companionship  of  our  own  corrupt 
nature.  And  we  have  far  more  to  fear  from  it  than  from  him. 
Great  however  as  are  the  pain  and  annoyance  which 
the  soul  experiences  from  temptation,  it  is  very  often  a 
gift  of  God  not  to  be  delivered  from  them.  Sometimes 
it  is  even  wise  not  to  pray  for  deliverance,  but  only  for 
valour  to  fight  a  good  fight.  St.  Paul  three  times  asked 
to  h*ve  his  thorn  removed,  in  imitation  doubtless  of  oui 
Lord's  triple  prayer  to  have  His  chalice  pass  from  Him  j 
24* 


282  TEMPTATIONS. 

and  ihe  answer  which  God  vouchsafed  was  a  proof  how 
greit  a  gift  the  temptation,  or  its  permission,  really  was. 
It  has  been  remarked  by  an  eminent  writer  on  the  interior 
life,  and  it  may  be  a  great  consolation  to  many  to  know 
it,  that  when  the  devil  attacks  our  body  it  is  often  a  sign 
that  he  has  been  secretly  attacking  our  soul,  and  has  been 
foiled.  It  is  also  a  characteristic  of  his  efforts  rather  to 
turn  us  from  virtue  than  to  impel  us  to  vice.  This  is  par- 
ticularly the  case  with  spiritual  people.  With  them  sins 
of  omission  make  more  for  him  than  sins  of  commission, 
not  only  because  it  is  less  easy  to  lead  a  spiritual  man 
into  the  former  than  into  the  latter,  but  also  because  the 
latter  more  effectually  rouse  him  to  repentance.  Luke- 
warmness  is  often  nothing  more  than  a  clogging  up  of  the 
avenues  of  the  soul  with  sins  of  omission,  so  that  the 
cool  and  salutary  inundations  of  grace  are  hindered. 

Nevertheless  the  approaches  of  the  devil  need  hardly 
ever  take  the  vigilant  by  surprise.  Whether  it  be  of  the 
spiritual  nature  of  our  soul,  or  of  the  fore'warnings  of 
grace,  we  have  almost  always  a  presentiment  of  his 
coming,  provided  we  have  a  habit  of  self-recollection. 
The  great  thing  when  we  feel  that  presentiment  is  not  to 
be  perturbed,  but  to  meet  him  in  the  calmness  of 
humility.  This  calmness  must  never  desert  us  during 
the  whole  of  the  fight,  least  of  all  when  we  feel  the  de- 
lectation which  in  many  cases  the  temptation  will  infal- 
libly excite.  I  say  in  many  cases,  because  there  are 
whole  classes  of  temptations  which  would  not  be  tempta- 
tions, at  all  were  it  not  for  the  delectation.  But  the  de- 
lectation is  not  consent.  We  are  not  the  masters  of  the 
first  indeliberate  movements  of  our  own  hearts  and  minds. 
The  enemy  may  run  his  hand  flourishingly  over  the  keys 


TEMPTATIONS.  283 

before  we  are  aware.  But  there  must  be  a  deliberate  ac- 
ceptation and  retention  of  the  delectation  before  it  can 
amount  to  consent  or  become  a  sin. 

All  men  have  their  temptations,  and  all  men's  tempta- 
tions are  multitudinous.  But  among  the  various  pathg 
by  which  God  onducts  chosen  souls,  one  is  the  way  of 
temptations.  These  souls  then  are  not  in  the  case  of 
other  men.  Temptation  is  their  road,  and  their  only  road. 
They  pass  through  crowds  of  them,  and  from  one  crowd 
into  another,  each  surpassing  its  predecessor  in  horror 
and  ugliness.  But  this  is  not  God's  ordinary  way,  and 
we  are  not  concerned  with  legislating  for  it  here.  Yet 
the  fact  that  God  can  make  a  way  of  perfection  consist 
of  temptations  only,  throws  considerable  light  on  the 
nature  of  temptation  generally. 

But  from  the  nature  let  us  pass  to  the  times  of  temp- 
tation. It  is  to  be  observed  that  we  may  often  have 
seasons  of  great  grace,  without  being  at  all  aware  of  it, 
from  the  extreme  hiddenness  of  the  operations  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  in  our  souls.  But  temptation  is  a  much 
more  obvious  thing  than  grace;  and  it  is  generally 
the  case  that  a  season  of  peculiar  temptation  is  also  a 
season  of  peculiar  grace.  And  this  it  is  a  consolation 
to  know.  Thus,  when  St.  Stephen's  heroic  faith  was 
passing  through  its  extremest  temptations,  he  beheld  our 
Lord,  not  sitting,  but  standing,  at  the  right  hand  of  the 
Father,  expressive  of  the  aid  He  was  rendering  to  His 
servant  in  his  hour  of  need.  Temptations  also  vary  with 
the  times  of  the  spiritual  life  to  which  they  belong. 
The  temptations  of  beginners  are  not  those  of  proficients, 
nor  those  of  proficients  the  temptations  of  the  perfect 
If  all  are  terrible,  all  are  in  God's  hands,  and  so  we  may 


284  TEMPTATIONS. 

be  tranquil  and  of  good  cheer.  There  are  also  times  of 
temptation,  when  our  own  past  sin,  or  our  present  culpable 
inadvertence,  is  the  cause  of  them.  We  have  brought 
them  upon  ourselves ;  and  this  makes  them  all  the  harder 
for  our  self-love  to  bear.  Still,  even  though  they  are  the 
just  and  immediate  chastisement  of  our  own  faults,  the 
patient  endurance  of  them  is  not  the  less  meritorious  \  and 
disquietude  forms  no  part  of  accepted  penance.  Times 
of  prayer  are  also  times  of  peculiar  temptation.  This 
was  naturally  to  be  expected,  inasmuch  as  there  is 
nothing  the  devil  so  much  desires  to  interrupt  as  our 
communication  with  God.  Indeed,  the  access  and  vehe- 
mence of  temptations  form  a  part  of  the  supernatural 
difficulties  of  prayer.  The  spiritual  life  itself,  with  its 
times  of  retreat  or  of  increased  recollection,  brings  us  into 
seasons  of  peculiar  temptation.  The  world  with  its  out- 
ward attractions  is  removed  from  us,  and  the  devil,  in 
dread  of  these  epochs  of  recollection,  more  than  supplies 
their  place  with  his  inward  appliances  of  temptation. 
There  are  times  also  when  he  teases  us  with  temptations 
to  which  he  knows  beforehand  that  we  shall  not  yield ; 
yet  in  which  he  finds  his  account  because  they  disquiet 
us,  or  dishearten  us,  or  throw  us  intr  a  general  irritability. 
There  are  other  times  in  which  he  tempts  us  in  the  grace 
we  have  just  used  to  overcome  him,  and  in  the  strength 
of  which  we  actually  have  overcome  him.  The  reason 
of  this  is  that  our  success  has  thrown  us  off  our  guard, 
and  we  never  dream  of  failing  in  a  virtue  which  but  a 
moment  before  has  flushed  us  with  the  joy  of  victory. 
Thus,  our  Lord  having  put  His  confidence  in  His  Father, 
the  devil  first  tempted  Him  by  it. 

From  the  times  of  temptation  we  pass  to  its  kinds. 


TEMPTATIONS.  285 

Some  temptations  are  frequent :  and  there  is  a  peculiai 
danger  in  their  frequency.  They  dissipate  us,  and  break 
up  the  calm  of  our  recollection.  Or  they  tire  us,  and  a! 
last  we  sit  down  and  give  up  the  battle  out  of  weariness 
Or  we  get  used  to  them,  and  lose  our  wholesome  fear  of 
them.  These  frequent  temptations  have  generally  some 
connection  with  our  ruling  passion.  Some  temptations  are 
durable,  and  they  also  have  dangers  of  their  own,  and  con- 
solations of  their  own.  Their  chief  danger  is  their  out- 
living our  powers  of  perseverance ;  and  their  chief  conso- 
lation is  that  their  very  durability  is  a  sign  they  have  not 
triumphed.  The  pressure  is  removed  the  moment  we 
3onsent;  and  consequently  the  lasting  of  the  burden  is  a 
measure  of  the  grace  God  has  given  us  to  resist  it. 
Although  Jesus  seems  fast  asleep  in  the  boat,  yet  that  it 
is  not  submerged  in  the  dark  angry  waters  is  because  He 
is  there.  There  are  other  temptations  which  are  brief, 
brief  and  gentle,  or  brief  and  violent.  The  brief  and 
gentle  leave  us  in  doubt  whether  we  have  not  consented, 
and  so  perplex  us  :  the  brief  and  violent  stun  us  for  the 
moment,  and  leave  us  in  an  amazement  during  which 
other  temptations  may  come  and  surprise  us.  Each 
virtue  has  its  own  attendant  temptations,  set  like  spies 
round  about  it  by  the  devil.  The  great  object  of  these 
is  to  make  us  retire  from  holy  enterprise,  and  reduce  ua 
to  an  unmeritorious  inaction.  We  must  meet  these  as 
St.  Bernard  met  the  devil  when  he  tempted  him  to  vain- 
glory in  the  middle  of  a  sermon,  "  I  did  not  begin  for 
you,  and  so  I  shall  not  leave  off  for  you."  Temptations 
which  approach  us  by  the  senses  are  proof  against  all 
weapons  except  those  of  mortification  and  the  sacraments. 
Temptations  against  faith  and  chastity  are  two  classes 


286  TEMPTATIONS. 

apart,  and  have  this  peculiarity,  that  they  are  never  to  be 
directly  resisted,  but  fled  from.  We  must  distract  our- 
selves from  them  instead  of  striking  them.  There  are 
other  temptations,  which  are  merely  feelers  to  explore 
our  possibilities  of  sin.  The  devil  sends  these  out  to 
gain  knowledge  of  us,  as  he  cannot  read  our  hearts;* 
just  as  a  besieging  army  sends  rockets  here  and  there 
into  a  city  to  try  for  the  powder  magazines.  But  among 
all  these  kinds  of  temptations,  there  is  no  one  class, 
which  is  any  sign  that  our  souls  are  in  an  evil  state. 
Spiritual  writers  jay  this  down  as  an  undoubted  fact;  and 
yet  how  much  self-torment  there  is  in  the  world  because 
silly  peevish  souls  will  persist  in  acting  as  if  its  contrary 
were  true. 

But  what  are  the  uses  of  tempations  ?  So  many  and 
so  great  that  I  can  do  no  more  than  indicate  a  few  of  them 
here.  They  try  us,  and  we  are  worth  nothing  if  we  are 
not  tried.  Our  trial  is  the  one  thing  God  cares  for,  and 
it  is  the  only  thing  which  gives  us  the  least  knowledge 
of  ourselves.  They  disgust  us  with  the  world  almost  as 
effectually  as  the  sweetnesses  which  God  gives  us  in  prayer. 
And  how  hard  it  is  to  become  thoroughly  disgusted  with 
the  world  :  and  how  very  much  more  we  really  love  the 
world  than  we  have  any  idea  of!  Oh,  of  what  price 
ought  anything  to  be  which  helps  us  to  a  true  and  final 
divorce  from  this  seductive  world !  They  enable  us  to 
merit  more,  that  is,  they  increase  God's  love  of  us,  and 
our  love  of  God,  and  our  glory  with  God  hereafter.  They 
punish  us  for  past  sins;    and  we  ought   to  court  such 

*  Surin  says  he  can  j  but  the  consent  of  theologians  is  against 
him  j  and  his  phenomena  are  explicable  without  denying  the  ad- 
mitted maxims  of  the  schools. 


TEMPTATIONS.  28V 

punishments  eagerly,  for  five  minutes  of  free-will  suffer- 
ing  on  earth  are  worth  five  years  of  the  tardy  cruelties 
of  purgatory.  They  purify  us  for  God's  presence,  which 
is  the  very  office  of  purgatory  itself,  and  anticipate  its 
work  and  so  prevent  its  fires.  They  prepare  us  for  spi- 
ritual consolations,  perhaps  they  even  earn  them  for  us. 
St.  Philip  says  that  God  gives  us  first  a  dark  and  then  a 
bright  day  all  through  life.  Can  words  tell  the  joy  it  is 
to  be  consoled  by  God?  Are  not  souls  whom  He  has 
touched  obliged  to  hold  their  tongues,  because  they  have 
no  words  to  express  the  happiness  it  was  ?  And  probably 
without  the  temptation,  the  consolation  never  would  have 
come.  Or  if  it  had  come,  it  might  have  harmed  us.  The 
temptation  has  made  us  capable  of  bearing  it  without  loss, 
and  tasting  it  and  not  fainting  away  with  its  unearthly 
sweetness.  Temptations  teach  us  our  own  weakness,  and 
so  humble  us ;  and  could  our  guardian  angels  do  more 
than  this  for  us,  in  all  the  variety  of  their  affectionate 
ministrations  ?  Dear  Prince,  more  than  brother  !  I  say 
it  not  in  light  esteem  of  his  unutterable  kindness,  who 
never  leaves  me  a  solitary  speck  in  this  huge  creation  of 
God,  and  whose  services  I  shall  never  know  till  they  all 
meet  me  at  the  doom  brighter  than  a  thousand  suns,  and 
whose  love  will  come  to  a  head  rather  than  to  an  end 
when  he  embraces  me  in  the  first  moment  of  the  resur- 
rection of  the  flesh  !  But  he  wishes  nothing  so  much  as 
to  keep  me  humble,  and  temptations  help  him  to  do  the 
work.  They  give  us  also  a  greater  esteem  of  grace,  and 
the  want  of  this  is  daily  the  cause  of  more  evil  in  the 
world  than  the  devil  can  cause  in  a  whole  century.  Grace 
grows  by  being  3steemed.  It  multiplies  itself  when  it  is 
honoured,  just  as  faith  merits  miracles,  while  infidelity 


288  TEMPTATIONS. 

hinders  even  our  Lord  from  working  them.  They  make 
virtue  take  deeper  root,  and  so  they  play  their  part  in 
the  grand  grace  of  final  perseverance.  How  shallow 
would  all  spirituality  be  if  it  were  not  for  temptations . 
How  shallow  good  men  actually  are,  who  are  not  much 
tempted  !  The  Church  can  never  trust  them  in  her  hour 
of  need.  They  are  always  on  the  side  on  which  St.  Tho- 
mas of  Canterbury  would  not  have  been.  Temptations 
again  make  us  more  watchful,  and  so  instead  of  leading 
into  sin,  they  hinder  shoals  of  sins.  They  make  us  more 
fervent,  and  kindle  in  us  such  a  fire  of  love  as  burns  away 
the  hay  and  straw  of  venial  sin,  and  cauterizes  the  half- 
healed  wounds  which  mortal  sin  has  made.  A  transport 
of  generous  love  can  do  a  work  as  great,  and  the  great 
work  as  well,  as  a  year's  fast  on  bread  and  water,  with  a 
discipline  a  day.  Lastly,  they  teach  us  spiritual  science : 
for  what  we  know  of  self,  of  the  world,  of  the  demons,  an<J 
of  the  artifices  of  divine  grace,  is  chiefly  from  the  pheno- 
mena of  temptation,  and  from  our  defeats  quite  as  mucl 
as  from  our  victories. 

These  are  the  uses  of  temptations,  and  they  leave  seven 
permanent  blessings  behind  them.  They  leave  us  merit, 
which  is  no  transient  thing.  Nay,  such  is  its  vitality  that 
when  mortal  sin  has  put  it  to  death,  penance  can  bring  it 
to  life  again.  They  leave  us  love,  both  God's  love  of  us 
and  our  love  of  Him.  They  leave  us  humility;  and  with 
that  all  other  gifts  of  God  j  for  the  Holy  Spirit  Himself 
rests  upon  the  humble,  and  makes  His  dwelling  in  theii 
hearts.  They  leave  us  solidity.  Our  building  is  so  much 
higher  than  it  was,  and  its  foundations  more  safely  and 
more  permanently  settled.  They  leave  us  self-knowledge, 
without  which  all  we  do  is  done  in  the  dark,  and  the 


TEMPTATIONS.  289 

rul  never  shines  upon  the  soul,  and  the  ground  is  never 
clear  for  the  operations  of  grace.  They  leave  us  self-love 
killed  j  and  has  life  a  fairer  task  than  the  burial  of  its 
worst  and  most  odious  enemy?  Its  dead  body  is  more  to 
us  than  the  relic  of  an  apostle,  and  surely  that  is  saying 
much.  They  leave  us  thrown  upon  God.  For  no  nurse 
ever  put  a  babe  into  its  father's  arms  more  carefully  or 
more  securely  than  temptations  put  us  into  the  extended 
arms  of  God.  And  yet  we  complain  —  complain  of  our 
temptations  !  Perverse  race  !  it  has  always  been  so;  from 
beneath  the  apple-tree  in  Eden  to  this  hour,  we  do  not 
know  our  own  happiness,  and  in  our  ignorance  we  pick  a 
special  quarrel  with  it ! 

Mistakes  can  be  made  about  temptations  as  about  every 
thing  else  in  the  spiritual  life;  and  many  have  been 
already  implied  and  explained  in  what  has  been  said. 
There  are,  however,  four  particular  mistakes  on  which  a 
few  words  may  be  of  use.  The  first  mistake  is  that  we 
are  apt  to  think  the  time  spent  in  combating  temptations 
is  time  lost.  We  are  all  very  well  and  very  tranquil,  and 
more  or  less  consciously  in  the  presence  of  God,  at  our 
ordinary  occupations ;  but  the  time  comes  for  visiting  the 
Blessed  Sacrament,  and  all  at  once  we  are  assailed  with  a 
multiplicity  of  temptations.  We  have  but  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  to  be  there,  and  the  whole  time  has  gone  in  doing 
battle  with  these  miserable  temptations;  or  we  rise  in  the 
morning,  full  of  the  thought  of  God,  and  say  prayers 
while  we  are  dressing.  We  then  kneel  down  to  begin  our 
meditation,  and  a  host  of  temptations  forthwith  assail  us. 
The  hour-glass  runs  down,  and  what  have  we  done  ?  No- 
thing but  fight,  and  it  seems,  too,  unsatisfactorily,  with 
these  pestering  temptations.  Now  we  must  remember 
25  T 


290  TEMPTATIONS. 

fchat  we  aie  not  to  serve  God  for  consolations,  or  after  our 
own  fashion,  and  according  to  our  own  taste ;  but  accord- 
ing to  His  wisdom  and  His  will.  His  rewards  are  not 
attached  to  the  good  works  we  prescribe  to  ourselves,  but 
to  the  combats  in  which  it  is  His  good  pleasure  to  involve 
us.  Time  can  never  be  lost  which  is  spent  in  doicg  the 
will  of  God.  On  the  contrary,  all  time  is  lost  which  is 
spent  otherwise.  What  is  our  object  ?  It  is  either  to  be 
glorifying  God,  or  to  be  perfect,  or  to  reach  heaven. 
Fighting  a  temptation  is  the  shortest  road  to  all  these 
three  ends. 

The  second  mistake  is  the  misapprehension  of  tempta- 
tions by  negligent  souls.  Sometimes  they  think  it  a  mark 
of  spiritual  advancement  to  be  inactive  and  almost  passive 
under  temptations.  They  apply  to  themselves  advices 
which  belong  only  to  the  perfect,  or  maxims  which  were 
intended  for  the  scrupulous.  Thus  they  fall  into  a  perni- 
cious habit  of  letting  dangerous  thoughts  pass  through 
their  minds,  without  demanding  or  examining  their  pass- 
ports ;  and  this  not  only  weakens  their  mind,  but  seems 
to  saturate  it  with  undesirable  images  and  inclinations. 
Their  feeling  about  sin  ceases  to  be  what  it  was,  and  their 
confidence  in  themselves  increases  as  the  probabilities  of 
a  fall  increase  also.  The  consequence  of  all  this  is  a  state 
of  torpor  and  of  general  slovenliness  with  God,  from  which 
if  they  are  roused  at  all,  it  is  probably  by  the  commission 
of  mortal  sin.  Lukewarm  souls  have  sometimes  been 
renewed  to  holiness  in  this  dreadful  way,  and  God  has 
shown  them  mercy  even  in  the  judicial  chastisement  of 
this  adorable  permission.  But  it  is  a  process,  the  very 
thought  of  wbich  should  make  us  shudder,  and  which 
probably  never  happened  to  any  one  who  was  negligent 


TEMPTATIONS.  291 

because  he  trusted  to  repentance  wilfully  delay  id,  and  to 
the  uucertain  possibilities  of  an  eventual  reconciliation 
with  God.  Whoever  has  familiarized  himself  with  what 
he  knows  are  temptations,  and  has  domesticated  the 
thought  of  them  in  his  mind,  no  matter  of  what  class 
they  may  be,  has  taken  a  decided  step  towards  that  state 
of  tepidity  whose  logical  development  is  final  impenitence. 
The  third  mistake  concerns  our  use  of  the  calms  which 
come  between  the  storms  of  periodical  temptations. 
Every  one  knows  by  his  own  experience  that  he  is  subject 
to  particular  classes,  or  to  one  particular  class  of  tempta- 
tions, which  come  round  in  perfect  hurricanes,  like  circu- 
lar storms  with  fair  and  tranquil  weather  between.  We 
have  been  going  on  in  our  ordinary  way.  We  see  no 
reason  for  a  change,  either  in  ourselves  or  in  external  cir- 
cumstances, when  all  at  once  the  storm  is  down  upon  us, 
with  the  same  sort  of  panic  the  heathen  felt  when  it 
thundered  out  of  a  clear  sky.  We  are  possessed  with 
the  images  of  the  temptation.  Every  outward  object 
turns  into  them.  We  hear  voices,  as  we  think,  and  inar- 
ticulate sounds  shape  themselves  into  intelligible  words. 
The  lines  of  books  run  into  the  ideas  of  temptation,  and 
prayers  and  holy  names  seem  only  fresh  food  for  the 
beleaguered  imagination.  We  are  sunk,  overhead,  deep 
down,  in  temptations,  and  the  masterful  current  is  sweep- 
ing in  eddies  above  us.  It  is  not  as  with  Peter  that  a 
Hand  was  held  out  as  we  were  in  the  act  of  sinking. 
We  are  sunk.  Yes !  and  Jesus  is  with  us  in  the  deep 
where  we  are.  Now  in  the  storm  we  have  simply  nothing 
to  do  but  to  hold  fast  to  God  with  all  our  might  and  main. 
There  is  no  help  for  it.  We  cannot  legislate  for  a  hurri- 
eane.     The  real  work  of  the  storm  must  be  done  in  the 


21)2  TEMPTATIONS. 

preceding  caln..  It  is  a  mistake  to  look  upon  these  calm 
as  a  time  of  rest  when  we  may  give  ourselves  up  to  the 
simple  enjoyment  of  the  absence  of  the  temptations,  or 
of  the  spiritual  sweetness  with  which  these  tempests  are 
commonly  followed.  We  must  lay  our  plans  then,  and 
make  our  resolutions,  with  a  foresight  of  what  we  have  to 
encounter.  We  must  fix  on  occasions  to  avoid,  increase 
our  mortifications,  and  redouble  our  prayers.  If  we  have 
gone  down  in  many  a  storm,  it  has  been  because  we  made 
holydays  of  our  calms.  Remember,  in  the  spiritual  life 
there  are  recreations;  but  there  are  no  holydays.  That 
school  breaks  up  but  once,  and  the  home  afterwards  is 
eternal. 

A  fourth  mistake  is  the  delusion  with  which  the  devil 
tries  to  possess  us,  that  if  we  give  way  in  some  of  the 
circumstances  of  the  temptation,  or  to  the  temptation 
itself  short  of  sin,  we  shall  weaken  it.  Our  whole  mind 
seems  so  completely  overlaid  with  the  images  of  tempta- 
tion, that  we  think  we  shall  suffer  some  permanent  moral 
injury,  if  it  lasts,  and. that  anything  short  of  sin  is  not 
allowable  only,  but  desirable  also,  which  will  release  us 
from  it.  It  is  strange  that  so  gross  a  snare  should  ever 
succeed;  yet  it  does  so  in  many  cases.  We  must  remem- 
ber, therefore,  that  to  yield  is  to  weaken  ourselves,  not 
the  temptation.  We  shall  get  no  foothold  so  strong  as 
our  first ;  and  men  often  discover  to  their  cost  that  even  a 
change  of  position,  without  abandoning  an  attitude  of 
defence,  is  as  good  as  a  defeat  in  the  time  of  temptation. 

But  how  are  we  to  overcome  temptations  ?  Cheerful- 
ness is  the  first  thing,  cheerfulness  the  second,  and  cheer* 
fulness  the  third.  The  devil  is  chained.  He  can  bark, 
but  he  cannot  bite,  unless  we  go  up  to  him  and  let  him 


TEMPTATIONS .  293 

Bo  so.  We  must  be  of  good  courage.  The  power  of 
temptation  is  in  the  fainting  of  our  own  hearts.  Confi- 
dence in  God  is  another  spiritual  weapon,  the  more  potent 
Decause  no  one  can  have  confidence  in  God  who  has  not 
the  completest  diffidence  of  himself.  God's  cause  is  ours, 
for  temptation  is  more  really  the  devil's  wrath  against 
God  who  has  punished  him,  than  against  us,  whom  he 
only  envies.  Our  ruin  is  important  to  him  only  as  it  is  a 
blow  at  God's  glory.  Thus  God  is  bound  to  us,  as  it 
were;  as  it  is  for  His  sake  that  we  are  thus  persecuted. 
We  may  be  sure,  indeed  we  know  infallibly,  that  we  shall 
never  be  tried  beyond  our  strength.  Prayer,  especially 
ejaculatory  prayer,  is  another  obvious  means  of  victory, 
together  with  mortification  and  the  frequenting  of  the 
sacraments,  which  are  all  of  them  wells  of  supernatural 
fortitude. 

Examination  of  conscience  must  help  us  to  detect  the 
weak  and  vulnerable  parts  of  our  nature ;  and  then  we 
must  exercise  ourselves  in  acts  contrary  not  only  to  oui 
peculiar  infirmities,  but  also  to  our  besetting  temptations. 
We  must  avoid  idleness,  and  crush  beginnings.  We 
must  not  speak  of  our  temptations  indiscriminately  to 
persons  who  have  no  right  to  know  anything  about  them, 
nor  even  to  our  spiritual  friends.  It  gives  no  real  relief, 
and  it  feeds  the  ideas.  Neither  must  we  be  cast  down 
if  our  director  treats  our  temptations  more  lightly  than 
we  think  they  deserve.  What  is  the  good  of  speaking 
to  him  at  all  about  them,  if  we  are  not  going  to  obey  his 
rules  and  adopt  his  view  and  follow  his  advice  ? 

In  times  of  temptation  we  must  be  very  eareful  not  to 
retrench  any  of  our  spiritual  exercises,  a  line  of  conduct 
or  which  the  evil  one  may  suggest  very  specious  reasons 
25* 


294  TEMPTATIONS. 

We  ha\e  need  of  all  our  strength  at  that  moment;  air  k 
we  never  know  to  which  of  our  ordinary  exercises  God 
attaches  His  grace.  It  would  have  been  better  for  the 
apostles  to  have  struggled  through  a  drowsy,  dry,  dis- 
tracted prayer,  than  to  have  simply  gone  to  sleep  in  the 
garden  of  Gethsemane.  We  must  remember  also  that 
all  our  spiritual  exercises  are  less  prompt  and  pleasant 
when  we  are  under  temptations ;  because  we  are  teased 
and  puzzled  by  them.  Hence  nature  is  more  likely  to 
suggest  the  abridgment  or  discontinuance  of  some  of 
them,  on  the  ground  of  their  being  useless  and  spiritless. 
But  although  things  are  established  by  the  mouth  of  two 
witnesses,  those  two  must  not  be  the  devil  and  the  human 
spirit.  We  must  also  be  cautious  not  to  change  our  pur- 
poses at  such  times.  The  dust  and  smoke  of  the  battle 
hang  over  us,  and  darken  all  things.  It  is  not  a  time 
for  us  to  see  God's  will  about  changes  and  vocations. 
His  will  just  then  is  that  we  resist  the  evil,  and  therefore 
that  is  the  single  thing  for  us  to  do.  Nay,  we  must  be- 
ware even  of  any  new  good  which  makes  its  appearance, 
knocks  at  the  door  of  our  heart,  or  puts  itself  ready- 
made  into  our  hands,  at  such  a  season.  St.  Ignatius 
long  since  warned  us  of  a  family  of  temptations  which 
present  themselves  in  the  disguise  of  good.  God  would 
not  send  us  the  good  then,  or  in  that  way.  His  will, 
once  more,  is  that  we  should  resist  the  evil.  The  good 
will  keep,  if  it  be  real  good ;  and  He  will  send  us  peace- 
able times  when  we  can  calmly  and  deliberately  take  it 
upon  ourselves. 

We  must  also  be  upon  our  guard  against  very  little 
temptations,  or  such  as  we  should  call  little.  For  things 
must  have  comparative  magnitudes,  even  where  our  soul** 


TEMPTATIONS.  295 

uri  concerned.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  a  man  who 
has  resisted  great  temptations  to  fall  in  little  ones.  This 
is  very  intelligible.  Wherever  there  is  dignity  in  an 
action  or  a  suffering  we  can  the  better  brace  ourselves  up 
to  it;  for  we  can  draw  largely  upon  nature  as  well  as 
grace.  Self-love  likes  dignity,  and  will  go  through  end- 
less pain,  as  if  it  were  an  insensible  thing,  in  order  to 
obtain  it.  Hence  comes  the  importance  of  little  things 
in  religion.  Nature  has  less  to  do  with  them,  and  so 
they  rivet  our  union  with  God  more  closely.  The  con- 
version of  souls,  works  of  mercy  on  a  grand  scale,  visit- 
ing prisons,  preaching,  hearing  confessions,  and  even 
establishing  religious  institutes,  are  comparatively  easy 
works  when  put  by  the  side  of  exactitude  in  daily  duties, 
observation  of  petty  rules,  minute  custody  of  the  senses, 
kind  words  and  modest  exterior  which  preach  the  pre- 
sence of  God.  We  gain  more  supernatural  glory  in  little 
things,  because  more  fortitude  is  required,  as  they  are 
continuous,  uninterrupted,  and  with  no  dignity  about 
them  to  spur  us  on.  All  the  strength  we  require  must 
be  found  within.  We  have  no  outward  place  or  praise 
of  men,  to  rest  our  lever  on,  and  furthermore  heroism  in 
little  things  is  more  a  matter  of  endurance  than  of  action. 
Lt  is  a  perpetual  constraint. 

Moreover,  our  spirit  is  more  effectually  taken  captive 
in  little  things.  Its  defeats  are  more  frequent.  The  very 
continuity  of  the  actions  forms  a  linked  chain,  which 
extends  to  many  things.  No  attachment  is  to  be  merely 
natural,  no  word  unweighed,  no  step  precipitate,  no  plea- 
sure enjoyed  sensually,  no  joy  to  evaporate  in  dissipation, 
the  heart  never  to  rest  on  carnal  tenderness  alone,  no 
action  to  have  its  spring  in  self-will.    We  tremble  at  such 


296  TEMPTATI0N8. 

seeming  impossibilities  of  perfection ; — yet  it  is  only  the 
perfection  of  little  things !  Then,  again,  theie  is  some- 
thing so  humbling  and  secret  in  little  things.  Who  knows 
if  we  count  our  words,  or  what  feelings  we  are  curbing  ? 
God  will  let  us  fall  in  these  very  respects  to  hide  us  more 
in  Himself,  and  from  the  eyes  of  men.  We  carry  the 
mortification  of  Jesus  about  us  unseen.  It  is  a  slow 
martyrdom  of  love.  God  is  the  only  spectator  of  our 
agony.  Nay,  we  ourselves  find  it  hard  to  realize  that  we 
are  doing  purely  for  God  such  a  multitude  of  trivial 
things;  hence  we  have  no  room  for  vain-glory,  no  falla- 
cious support  of  conscious  human  rectitude. 

But  in  these  little  things  we  not  only  gain  more  glory 
for  ourselves,  but  we  give  more  glory  to  God.  We  show 
more  esteem  for  Him  in  them  ',  for  there  must  necessarily 
be  more  pure  motive  and  sheer  faith  in  little  than  in  great 
things.  Great  things  by  their  greatness  often  hide  God ; 
and  at  the  best  the  esteem  in  great  things  is  mostly  divided 
Detween  God  and  the  glory  of  the  action,  and  so  the  whole 
work  is  tainted  Whereas  the  littleness  and  vileness  of 
small  things,  their  apparent  facility  and  men's  contempt 
for  them,  leave  the  soul  face  to  face  with  God  in  the  dis 
enchanting  twilight  of  interior  mortification.  But  it  is 
not  merely  esteem.  More  actual  tribute  is  paid  to  God  in 
little  things.  In  great  things  we  have  more  help  given 
us,  and  we  give  God  less  because  we  have  to  labour  less. 
The  abundance  of  grace,  the  sweetness  of  it,  and  the 
animation  of  spirit  from  the  pursuit  of  a  great  object,  are 
three  things  which  lessen  our  own  labour.  Yet  it  is  our 
own  toil  that  is  the  real  tribute  to  God,  just  as  dry  prayers 
are  said  to  be  more  meritorious  than  sweet  ones.  In  great 
things  too  we  seldom  have  the  liberty  of  acting  as  we  please. 


TEMPTATIONS.  297 

Tn  little  ones  we  have,  and  we  pay  that  liberty  away  hour 
by  hour  to  God  as  a  tribute  of  fidelity  and  love. 

But  esteem  and  tribute  are  not  all.  We  sacrifice  more 
to  God  in  little  things.  We  think  little  of  little  things, 
and  so  we  make  the  sacrifice,  not  in  swelling  thoughts  of 
mightiness,  but  out  of  a  subdued  feeling  of  our  own  utter 
nothingness,  and  of  the  immensity  of  our  being  allowed 
to  make  any  sacrifice  to  God  at  all.  We  sacrifice  also  our 
self-interest,  which  is  not  attracted  by  anything  in  these 
ignoble  victims;  and  so  we  seek  God  only,  and  put  aside 
the  pursuit  of  praise  and  self.  We  forego  also  the  enjoy- 
ment of  strenuous  manly  action ;  for  what  manliness,  as 
men  count  things,  is  there  in  regularity,  littleness,  exact- 
ness, and  obscurity  ?  Yet  this  is  the  only  road  to  solid 
virtue.  It  was  not  what  we  read  of  in  the  saints  that 
made  them  saints :  it  was  what  we  do  not  read  of  them 
that  enabled  them  to  be  what  we  wonder  at  while  we  read. 
Words  cannot  tell  the  abhorrence  nature  has  of  the  piece- 
meal captivity  of  little  constraints.  And  as  to  little  temp- 
tations, I  can  readily  conceive  a  man  having  the  grace  to 
be  roasted  over  a  slow  fire  for  our  dearest  Mother's  Im- 
maculate Conception  or  the  Pope's  Supremacy,  who  would 
not  have  the  grace  to  keep  his  temper  in  a  theological 
conversation  on  either  of  those  points  of  the  catholic  faith. 

One  more  question  remains  about  temptations.  How 
shall  we  behave  when  we  ourselves  are  overcome  ?  There 
is  but  one  answer,  one  advice  :  it  is  childish  :  but  is  there 
any  other  ?  When  we  fall  we  must  rise  again,  and  go  on 
our  way,  wishing  ourselves,  after  a  Christian  fashion,  better 
luck  another  time. 


SCRUPLES. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


SCRUPLES 


A  scrupulous  man  teases  God,  irritates  his  neigh 
bour,  torments  himself,  and  oppresses  his  director.  Il 
would  require  a  whole  volume  to  prove  these  four  infalli- 
ble propositions ;  the  reader  must,  therefore,  either  take 
them  on  faith,  or  make  the  acquaintance  of  a  scrupulous 
man.  Every  one  who  is  in  trouble  and  disgrace  deserves 
commiseration ;  but  our  pity  is  lessened  when  the  sufferer 
has  no  one  to  blame  hut  himself,  and  it  well-nigh  departs 
altogether  when  he  remains  in  his  suffering  of  his  own 
obstinate  will.  Now  this  is  the  case  with  scrupulous  per- 
sons during  all  the  earlier  stages  of  their  complaint,  before 
they  become  incurable.  They  are  the  opprobrium  of 
spiritual  physicians,  and  so  intensely  difficult  is  their  cure 
that  God  has  sometimes  allowed  those,  who  were  hereafter 
to  be  the  guides  of  souls,  to  pass  through  a  supernatural 
state  of  scruples,  that  they  might  be  the  better  able  tc 
minister  to  the  disease  in  others.  It  is  a  great  part  of  the 
science  of  the  spiritual  life  to  know  a  temptation  from  a 
gin ;  and  a  scruple  may  almost  be  defined  to  be  the  culpa 
ble  ignorance  of  this  Another  man  may  discern  that  my 
scruple  is  not  a  «in ;  but  if  I  discerned  it  for  myself,  it 
would  not  be  a  scruple ;  and  if  I  took  it  on  faith  whon 
my  director  told  me,  I  should  not  be  a  scrupulous  man 
This  lets  us  into  the  secret  of  the  malice  of  scruples. 
They  are  not  sins,  but  they  are  so  full  of  wrong  disposi- 


SCRUPLES.  299 

tions  that  they  can  become  sins  at  a  moment's  notice,  be- 
sides being  sources  of  many  sins  under  the  pretext  of 
good.  They  are  little  centres  of  spiritual  death  spotting 
the  soul,  a  kind  of  moral  erysipelas. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  scrupulous  persons  are  always 
spoken  of  with  great  compassion,  far  more  than  they  de- 
erve.  Hence  they  elevate  their  scruples  to  an  interior 
trial  of  the  soul;  which  they  sometimes  are,  but  very 
seldom.  It  is  unfortunate  also  that  in  common  conver- 
sation the  word  scruple  is  often  used  in  a  good  sense,  as 
if  it  were  something  respectable,  and  a  sort  of  vague  syno- 
nym for  conscientiousness.  It  would,  therefore,  be  a  great 
thing  if  men  could  get  well  into  their  minds  this  ascetical 
truth,  that  there  is  nothing  respectable  about  a  scruple. 
It  has  no  intellectual  worth.  It  merits  no  moral  esteem. 
It  has  not  the  faintest  element  of  spiritual  good  in  it.  It 
is  simply  a  perversity  and  a  wrongness,  deserving  of  pity 
certainly,  but  of  the  same  kind  and  amount  as  we  have 
for  a  man  who  is  going  to  be  hung.  Francesca  of  Pam 
peluna  saw  many  souls  in  purgatory  only  for  scruples; 
and  when  this  surprised  her,  our  Lord  told  her  there 
never  was  a  scruple  which  was  wholly  without  sin.  This 
was,  of  course,  not  meant  to  apply  to  supernatural  scru- 
ples, which  we  shall  consider  presently.  But  scruples  are 
not  only  bad  in  themselves.  They  give  rise  to  countless 
other  mischiefs ;  and  one  of  the  most  provoking  of  them 
is,  that  men  are  often  deterred  from  the  pursuit  of  per- 
fection and  the  constraints  of  the  interior  life  by  the  feai 
of  scruples. 

A  scruple  is  defined  in  theology  to  be  a  vain  fear  of 
ein  where  there  is  no  reason  nor  reasonable  ground  for 
suspecting  sin  ;  and  it  is  sometimes  explained  in  etymo- 


800  SCRUPLES. 

logy  to  mean  a  stone  in  a  man's  shoe  which  makes  him 
walk  lame,  and  wounds  him  at  every  step,  which  is  not 
an  inapt  figure  for  expressing  its  consequences  in  the  spi- 
ritual life.  We  may  also  compare  a  scrupulous  man  to  a 
norse  shying  at  shadows,  and  so  making  little  progress, 
backing,  disobeying  the  rein,  often  endangering  the  ridei, 
and  always  trying  his  temper.  Moreover,  he  runs  into 
real  sin  from  startling  at  the  shadow  of  imaginary  sin ; 
and  all  this  is  so  connected  with  pride  that  the  tender 
St.  Philip  gave  no  quarter  to  scrupulous  persons  who 
would  not  pay  blind  obedience  to  the  rules  given  them. 
Thus  scruples  are  quite  distinct  from  delicacy  of  con 
science,  which  is  known  by  its  not  only  being  reasonable, 
but  much  more  by  its  being  tranquil )  neither  is  a  scrupk 
the  same  thing  as  laxity,  but  Gerson  thinks  that  it  it 
almost  worse. 

The  first  question  for  us  to  consider  regards  the  causes 
of  scruples.  These  are  three :  God,  the  devil,  and  our- 
selves,  or  the  human  spirit ;  and  to  these  last  the  body 
contributes  as  well  as  the  soul. 

First,  then,  scruples  may  be  from  God.  These  are 
what  I  have  called  supernatural  scruples.  God  may  per- 
mit us  to  fall  into  them  for  various  reasons.  Sometimes 
it  is  to  prepare  us  for  the  office  of  directing  souls,  in  which 
it  is  important  that  we  should  have  an  experimental 
knowledge  of  scruples,  so  as  to  guide  others  safely  through 
them.  Sometimes  it  is  as  an  exterior  trial,  or  what 
mystics  call  a  purgation  of  spirit;  and  their  use  is  one 
while  to  wean  us  from  an  excessive  attachment  to  spiri- 
tual sweetnesses  and  the  extraordinary  favours  of  God, 
and  another  while  to  let  us  have  our  purgatory  on  earth, 
and  another  while  to  destroy  the  lingering  activity  of  self- 


SCRUPLES.  301 

love.  He  thus  cleanses  us  from  our  past  faults  by  a  most 
apt,  yet  extremely  severe  penance,  confirms  us  in  a  salu- 
tary fear,  and  humbles  us  in  the  ver\  matters  wherein 
humiliation  is  felt  most  distressingly.  His  share  in  the 
process  is  simply  the  withdrawing  of  the  gratuitous  light 
in  which  he  allowed  the  soul  to  walk  before.  It  was  under 
this  subiraction  that  St.  Bonaventure  would  not  say  mass, 
and  St.  Ignatius  refused  to  eat,  that  Ippolito  Galantini 
was  swallowed  up  in  a  sea  of  scruples,  that  St.  Luitgarde 
said  her  office  so  many  times  over  that  God  sent  an  angel 
to  forbid  her,  and  that  St.  Augustin,  as  he  tells  us  in  his 
Confessions,  was  so  teased  with  scruples  about  his  natural 
pleasure  in  eating  and  drinking. 

Secondly,  scruples  may  be  from  the  devil,  who  is  a 
positive  cause  of  them,  which  God  can  never  be.  St. 
Lawrence  Justinian  says :  It  often  happens  by  the  dispo- 
sition of  God  that  the  evil  spirits  confound  the  consciences 
of  the  weak  by  doubtfulness  and  by  a  host  of  pricking 
fears,  so  that  they  cannot  move  their  foot  through  the 
excess  of  these  terrors  of  conscience.  Nay,  their  per- 
suasions and  importunities  can  actually  bring  it  to  pass 
that  what  is  a  very  little  sin,  or  no  sin  at  all,  may  be 
turned  into  a  mortal  sin.  The  devil's  object  is,  of  course, 
always  real  sin ;  and  he  knows  well  that  scruples  are  a 
sure  though  a  circuitous  road  to  it,  and  not  the  less  sure 
for  being  circuitous. 

But  thirdly,  the  greatest  fountain  of  these  dishonour- 
able unworthinesses  is  in  ourselves.  It  is  partly  in  our 
soul,  and  partly  in  our  body.  This  is  the  most  practical 
part  of  our  subject,  and  must  be  considered  at  greater 
length.  The  causes  of  scruples  from  our  soul  are  c'/>aer 
intrinsic  or  extrinsic.  The  intrinsic  are  five  in  nui  ter. 
26 


302  SCRUPLES. 

The  first  is  the  want  of  discernment  in  temptations,  so 
that  a  man  does  not  distinguish  between  temptation  and 
consent.  Of  this  I  have  spoken  in  the  last  chapter.  It 
is  difficult  to  exaggerate  its  importance,  as  so  many  things 
are  vitiated  by  this  unhappy  ignorance.  The  second  is  a 
hidden  pride,  which  takes  the  shape  of  self-opinionated- 
ness.  There  are  few  men  who  have  not  some  pet  opinions 
to  which  they  cling  with  an  unreasonable  tenacity.  They 
may  be  very  humble  in  other  matters.  They  may  even 
have  a  certain  amount  of  intellectual  humility.  But  they 
cannot  be  made  to  discern  the  inordinateness  of  this 
tenacity.  If  it  be  on  a  question  of  theology,  ten  to  one 
it  becomes  implicit  heresy  in  a  short  time.  They  cannot 
see  the  force  of  any  arguments  on  the  other  side.  They 
unsuspiciously  interpret  in  their  own  favour  the  mos< 
plain  counter-statements  in  theologians,  whose  authority 
they  dare  not  call  in  question.  From  conversations  they 
retire  with  an  exactly  opposite  impression  of  the  interlo- 
cutor's opinion  from  that  which  he  distinctly  meant  to 
convey.  Is  there  any  subject  on  theology  which  we  can 
never  discuss  without  either  sadness  or  irritability  ?  We 
may  be  sure  we  have  got  hold  of  a  wrong  opinion  about 
it.  When  this  tenacity  of  judgment  fastens  upon  a  ques- 
tion of  the  spiritual  life,  it  becomes  a  source  of  scruples, 
and  a  source  which  is  itself  poisoned  by  wrong  disposi- 
tions. Out  of  this  came  Jansenism  and  Quietism ;  and 
in  the  secret  of  private  and  even  conventual  life  it  is,  aa 
great  writers  tell  us,  unceasingly  destroying  souls.  Safe 
and  happy  is  the  man,  if  such  an  one  there  be,  and  en 
joyable  the  office  of  his  guardian  angel,  who,  outside  the 
limits  of  the  catholic  faith  and  the  approval  of  the  Church 


SCRUPLES.  303 

has  ik  opinion  which  it  would  not  give  hiui  Un  minutes 
uneasiness  to  abandon ! 

The  third  cause  is  an  excessive  fear  of  God's  justice  or 
a  distrust  of  His  mercy ;  for  it  may  take  either  of  these 
forms.  Thus  if  a  man  has  laid  to  heart  what  has  been 
said  before  of  looking  on  God  as  a  Father,  he  will  escape 
this  snare.  It  is  not  that  scruples  have  any  real  worship 
of  the  divine  justice,  which  through  an  intellectual  infirm- 
ity leads  them  to  underrate  the  riches  of  His  mercy 
Scruples  have  nothing  to  do  with  God  for  His  own  sake. 
There  is  no  devotional  spirit  about  them,  not  even  a  mis- 
taken one.  The  disguise  may  be  varied  almost  infinitely, 
but  it  is  always  self-love  which  is  beneath  the  veil.  It  is 
our  fear,  not  God's  honour,  which  leads  us  to  exaggerate 
the  one  attribute  and  to  depreciate  the  other.  The  fourth 
^ause  is  an  inordinate  anxiety  to  avoid  even  the  appear- 
ance of  sin,  and  to  have  a  full  certainty  that  such  and  such 
actions  are  not  sins.  We  are  impatient  of  tiie  uncertainty 
in  which  it  has  pleased  God  that  we  should  often  walk- 
We  would  fain  change  the  assurance  of  faith  for  the  evi- 
dence of  sight,  or  the  conviction  of  reason.  God  has  made 
faith  the  light  of  life.  We  wish  for  a  light  more  unde 
niable  and  more  bright.  He  who  loves  God  wishes  to 
avoid  sin ;  but  to  wish  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  sin  is 
by  no  means  an  infallible  proof  of  sanctity  and  love.  Short 
of  scandal,  the  saints  have  seen  almost  a  shelter  in  the 
semblance  of  sin.  It  is  sin,  and  not  the  appearance  of  it, 
which  wounds  God's  honour.  So  that  here  again  it  is 
self,  our  own  outward  reputation  or  our  own  inward 
satisfaction,  which  we  are  seeking  under  the  false  pretence 
of  God's  glory.  I  cannot  repeat  it  too  often,  so  that  we 
may  be  inspired  with  a  greater  disgust  for  these  plague- 


304  SCRUPLES. 

spots;  —  there  is  lo  search  after  God  in  scruples.  Self  ifi 
their  centre,  and  they  revolve  round  it  with  odioas  accu- 
racy and  fidelity.  The  fifth  cause  is  an  indiscreet  auste' 
rity,  which  shows  itself  in  avoiding  the  company  of  others, 
as  if  perfection  consisted  in  being  morose.  There  are  very 
few  souls  which  can  bear  solitude.  For  the  most  part  it 
makes  them  a  prey  to  sin  instead  of  deepening  their  habits 
of  the  presence  of  God.  Hence  it  was  that  the  old  cono- 
bites  of  the  desert  were  so  tardy  in  allowing  the  vocation 
of  those  who  thought  themselves  called  to  the  hermit's 
life.  With  people  in  the  world  the  same  principles  are  at 
work  in  their  measure.  To  shun  society  and  shut  our- 
selves up,  as  if  to  keep  out  of  the  way  of  sin,  to  avoid 
rash  judgments,  to  do  penance,  and  to  practise  prayer,  is 
a  line  of  conduct  which  rarely  answers.  It  is  beset  with 
temptations,  and  an  atmosphere  of  delusions  is  spread  all 
over  it.  In  spite  of  the  fertility  of  sin  which  we  find  in 
temerarious  criticism,  and  an  ungoverned  tongue,  and  an 
irritable  exacting  temper,  the  majority  of  men  sin  less  when 
they  are  with  others  than  when  they  are  by  themselves. 

When  the  causes  of  scruples  are  in  the  soul,  but  are  so 
in  consequence  of  external  circumstances,  they  come  either 
from  the  permission  of  God  or  the  temptation  of  Satan, 
both  of  which  we  have  already  considered,  or  from  convers- 
ing with  scrupulous  persons,  or  reading  books  of  spiritual- 
ity and  moral  theology  which  a  prudent  director  would 
have  prohibited  our  reading.  These  two  last  causes  ex- 
plain themselves,  and  need  not  be  commented  upon. 

There  remain  two  more  causes,  both  of  which  arise  from 
the  body  rather  than  the  soul.  The  first  is  a  cold,  melan- 
choly, and  hypochondriacal  temperament,  and  the  second 
is  weakness  of  the  head.    The  scruples  which  come  from 


SCRUPLES.  305 

a  melancholy  temperament  are  of  all  the  most  difficult  to 
cure.  This  is  especially  the  case  when  persons  of  that 
disposition  are  given  to  immoderate  corporal  austerities, 
which  seem  at  once  to  thicken  the  gloom  of  their  minds 
and  to  strengthen  the  obstinacy  of  their  self-will.  It  is 
very  rare  indeed  that  such  a  person  is  ever  completely 
cured.  Indeed,  as  we  shall  see  by-and-bye,  complete  cures 
of  this  disease  are  altogether  rare.  These  temperaments 
have  a  constitutional  aptitude  for  turning  sweets  into  bit- 
ters, and  thus  the  very  remedies  re-inforce  the  malady. 
The  weakness  of  head  is  sometimes  natural,  and  some- 
times the  result  of  inordinate  study,  eager  application  to 
prayer,  or  a  foolish  abridgment  of  sleep.  It  is  not  easy 
for  a  spiritual  man  to  be  guilty  of  either  of  these  three 
things  without  sin ;  so  that  in  this  case  even  the  physical 
causes  of  scruple  we  prepare  for  ourselves,  by  our  own 
disobedience  or  the  indulgence  of  self-will.  What  sight 
is  more  provoking,  and  alas !  what  more  common,  than 
to  see  a  devout  man  doing  a  right  thing  in  a  wrong  way, 
and  maintaining  he  is  right? 

The  signs  of  scruples  may  be  inferred  from  their  causes. 
The  first  is  pertinacity  of  will  and  way.  It  is  very  rare 
indeed  that  a  docile  man  is  scrupulous;  and  when  he  is 
so,  his  scruples  are,  for  the  most  part,  supernatural,  and 
therefore  sanctifying.  Disobedience  is  the  counterpart 
of  scrupulosity.  Pertinacity  is  the  opposite  of  the  spirit 
of  Jesus. 

The  second  sign  is  a  greedy  desire  to  know  our  own 
interior  state.  This  comes  to  pass  when  self-love  entirely 
possesses  us,  as  if  it  were  a  living  demon.  We  are  un- 
able to  use  the  words  of  Innocent  the  Third,  to  "  explode 
'he  light  and  rash  credulity  of  our  conscience."  We  must 
26*  u 


806  SCRUPLES. 

know  whether  we  are  in  a  state  of  grace.  We  will  not  go 
a  step  further  till  we  do  know.  We  must  be  told  whether 
the  sin  we  have  confessed  be  grave  or  not.  We  remain 
dumb  till  our  confessor  has  told  us.  God  must  give  us 
a  mathematical  certainty  in  moral  questions,  or  we  shall 
faint.  We  will  give  up  holiness.  We  will  not  try  to 
persevere.  "  Human  reason  cannot  take  in  the  infinity 
of  particulars,"  says  St.  Thomas,  "so  that  our  providences 
must  remain  uncertain."  This  is  God's  will,  but  it  is  not 
ours.  A  scrupulous  man  measures  nothing  by  God's  will, 
but  everything  by  his  own.  What !  are  we  not  to  know 
whether  what  we  are  doing  is  certainly  pleasing  to  God  ? 
No!  says  St.  Bonaventure;  "to  know  that  we  have  cha- 
rity is  not  necessary  to  salvation ;  it  is  the  having  of  it 
which  is  so."  Thus  because  we  will  have  more  light 
than  God's  light,  we  walk  in  the  darkness,  and  down  the 
precipice :  our  first  step  is  in  perplexity,  our  second  in 
cowardice,  our  third  in  sadness,  and  our  fourth  in  irreme- 
diable perdition. 

The  third  sign  is  a  frequent  change  of  our  opinion  for 
reasons  of  no  moment,  together  with  an  inconstancy  and 
perturbation  in  action.  We  are  not  only  prone  to  give 
way  to  frivolous  fears,  but  we  are  fluctuating  and  unequa- 
ble in  our  very  fears.  We  are  disquieted  and  agitated  by 
them,  even  while  we  persist  in  caressing  them.  If  we  are 
asked  whether  there  be  sin  in  such  or  such  an  action,  we 
answer  that  there  is  not.  Yet  we  are  frightened  of  acting 
even  on  the  conviction  of  our  own  reason,  coupled  with  the 
admonitions  of  obedience ;  as  if  forsooth  our  soul  were 
worth  so  much  more  than  the  souls  of  others. 

The  fourth  sign  is  what  Descuret  calls  the  feeding  of 
ourselves  with  extravagant  reflections  on  the  most  trivial 


SCRUPLES  307 

circumstances  of  our  actions.  It  belongs  to  the  perverse 
genius  of  scruples  to  give  its  attention  to  what  is  unim- 
portant, and  to  withdraw  it  from  that  in  which  the  whole 
gist  of  the  matter  lies.  In  other  words  it  is  an  essentially 
impertinent  spirit,  in  the  etymological  sense  of  the  word. 
It  is  always  busy,  but  never  at  its  own  business ;  always 
at  work,  but  its  work  is  one  of  confusion,  not  of  order. 
It  hovers  among  the  flowers,  lights  upon  them,  turns 
their  cups  topsy  turvy,  and  empties  them  of  their  crystal 
dew,  but  gets  honey  out  of  none  of  them  Some  animals 
make  a  noise,  not  to  express  their  emotions,  but  to  give 
vent  to  their  self  importance ;  and  scruples  are  like  one 
of  these.  They  are  neither  of  use  ncr  ornament;  but 
that  they  can  tease  is  a  grateful  sign  of  power. 

The  fifth  sign  is  a  fear  of  sin  even  in  actions  which 
the  man  himself  perceives  to  be  undeniably  excellent 
There  is  something  amazing  in  the  stupid  ingenuity  with 
which  the  mind  tries  to  make  out  a  case  against  good 
works,  and  something  still  more  amazing  in  +,he  power  it 
has  of  believing  in  itself,  a  belief  which  is  not  a  whit 
shaken  by  the  manifest  disbelief  of  the  whole  world 
besides.  Occasionally  it  makes  us  suspect  that  there  is 
truth  in  what  som§  one  said,  that  all  men  were  mad,  and 
that  what  we  agree  to  call  madness  is  only  a  question  of 
degree.  It  is  useless  to  argue  with  men  in  thi?  disposi- 
tion :  our  duty  is  to  command  them,  our  temptation  is  to 
strike  them. 

The  sixth  sign  is  a  habit  of  bodily  attitudes,  postures, 
gestures,  strugglings,  half-aloud  ejaculations,  fidgets,  ina- 
bility to  sit  still,  which  an  old  Benedictine  writer  calls 
Bimply  ridiculous,  but  which  modern  manners  would 
rather  deem  distressing.     I  suppose  the  meaning  of  this 


308  SCRUPLES. 

is,  alter  tne  lashion  of  Gorres'  mystical  explanations,  that 
the  disease  of  the  soul  has  spread  out  and  transferred 
itself  into  the  organization,  and  has  now  reached  the  feet 
and  the  finger-ends.  This  can  only  be  cured  as  we  cure 
children  who  rub  their  eyes  and  bite  their  nails,  whether 
those  practices  come  of  idleness,  eagerness,  temper,  or 
abstraction. 

The  seventh  sign  is  a  perpetual  hankering  after  our 
past  confessions,  a  wish  to  rake  them  up  and  overhaul 
them,  and  see  if  we  cannot  find  matter  for  some  choice 
scruplo  in  them.  We  do  not  know  what  is  wrong  about 
them.  We  even  shrink  from  specifying,  lest  the  charm 
should  £0.  But  it  is  a  delightful  misery,  a  wretchedness 
in  which  a  scrupulous  spirit  revels.  He  fondles  it,  as  an 
Englishman  nurses  his  beloved  melancholy.  We  are 
dying  to  make  a  fresh  general  confession,  but  not  at  all 
inclined  to  take  any  great  pains  to  prepare  for  it,  or  any 
vigorous  measures  against  present  faults.  But  it  esta- 
blishes our  empire  over  our  director.  We  triumph  over 
his  reluctance;  and  we  go  to  it  infallibly  sure  of  one 
thing,  that  what  he  mistakenly  conceives  to  be  our  beset- 
ting sin,  is  just  the  one  sin,  thank  God,  which  does  not 
beset  us.  Any  one  but  that.  Certainly  not  that.  And 
all  this  while,  we  fancy  that  being  in  motion  is  necessarily 
progress.  Alas!  we  are  like  the  sails  of  a  windmill, 
always  on  the  move,  but  only  round  and  round. 

But  the  signs  and  developments  of  scruples  are  some- 
what different,  according  to  the  causes  from  which  they 
proceed,  and  it  is  very  important  to  notice  this  pheuo 
mencn.  Foi  example,  when  the  scruples  arise  from  our 
own  temperament,  they  are  generally  the  same.  They 
warn,  variety      Pertinacity  sticks  to  the  same  things,  and 


SCRUPLES  309 

sombre  thoughts  turn  away  from  change.  Thus,  we 
never  get  out  of  the  identical  round  which  we  have  paced 
before,  grinding  the  same  clay,  to  make  the  same  bricks. 
Our  mind  is  like  a  staunch  protestant  with  his  twenty- 
times-answered  objection,  recurring  to  it  again  and  again, 
but  carefully  abstaining  from  the  slightest  allusion  to  the 
answer.  We  have  but  one  note.  A  parrot  speaks  plain, 
but  its  sphere  of  conversation  is  extremely  limited. 
When,  however,  our  scruples  proceed  from  the  devil,  the 
case  is  widely  different.  Then  they  are  very  numerous 
and  extremely  variable.  They  are  for  the  most  part  very 
dishonourable  to  God,  and  fasten  by  preference  either  on 
His  ever-blessed  attributes,  or  on  the  sweet  .mystery  of 
the  Incarnation,  or  on  the  soul-saving  sacraments.  They 
are  accompanied  by  a  special  darkening  of  the  mind,  a 
sort  of  eclipse  of  faith,  which  is  a  favourite  resort  of  the 
evil  one.  We  are  numb  and  cold  in  prayer,  oppressed 
with  an  enervating  languor,  and  desire  exceedingly  to 
r^lax  our  rule  of  life,  at  least  for  awhile.  When  our 
scruples  are  from  God,  they  cease  periodically,  and  cease 
all  at  once,  just  as  a  porter  slips  off  his  burden  and  rests 
it  on  a  lamp-post.  This  is  an  infallible  sign  of  their 
being  from  God.  It  would  not  happen  naturally.  The 
natural  deposing  of  a  scrupulous  conscience  cannot  be 
instantaneous  and  complete.  Another  mark  of  divine 
scruples  is  that  we  go  on  towards  perfection  in  spite  of 
them,  or  rather  secretly  because  of  them.  The  more  they 
tease  us  the  more  constant  we  are  in  our  spiritual  exer- 
cises, the  more  gentle  and  forbearing  with  others,  the 
more  obedient  to  our  guides  and  superiors :  and  we  look 
to  God  the  more  smilingly  with  all  the  plenitude  of  a 
filial  confidence,  which  is  equally  clear  of  servile  dread  or 


810  SCRUPLES 

of  presuming  familiarity;  and  there  is  a  look  of  pain  on 
our  faces  mingling  with  the  smile. 

All  scruples,  which  are  not  supernatural  simply  turn 
on  two  hinges,  ignorance  and  pusillanimity.  Let  us  do 
away  with  the  first  and  fortify  the  second,  and  these  mise 
rable  emissaries  of  evil  cannot  harm  us. 

If  we  cast  an  eye  upon  the  subjects  on  which  scruples 
fasten,  we  shall  see  still  greater  reason  to  turn  from  them 
with  mingled  repugnance  and  contempt.  First  of  all 
there  is  prayer.  In  an  unhealthy  state  of  mind  it  seems 
positively  to  attract  scruples  to  itself.  There  is  no"  part 
of  it,  mental,  vocal,  or  ejaculatory,  considerations,  affec- 
tions, or  resolutions,  which  do  not  seem  to  be  their 
favourite  food,  and  out  of  which  they  do  not  suck  the 
marrow  of  the  divine  life.  The  sacraments,  especially 
confession  and  communion,  they  haunt  with  a  pertinacity 
only  equalled  by  their  versatility.  The  dry  communion 
has  its  own  family  of  scruples ;  the  fervent  communion 
another.  With  one  man's  confession  it  is  the  penance 
they  settle  on,  with  another's  the  contrition,  with  another's 
the  narration,  with  another's  the  preparation.  All  is 
equal  to  them  ;  for  they  taint  wherever  they  touch.  The 
keen  air  which  breathes  round  the  heights  on  which  vows 
are  placed  does  not  impede  the  respiration  of  scruples. 
They  are  little  creatures,  but  robust ;  and  vows  are  fine 
game  and  glorious  food  for  them.  Nothing  is  higher 
than  a  vow,  and  that  is  not  too  high  for  them.  Nothing 
is  lower  than  a  fear  of  bodily  discomfort,  and  that  is  not 
too  low  for  them.  They  are  universal  insects,  and  ubi- 
quitous, worse  than  those  that  of  old  teased  the  African 
into  being  a  Manichee.  Fraternal  correction  is  a  perfec* 
luxury  to  them.     It  lies  in  the  shade,  and  thore  is  no 


SCRUPLES.  all 

strong  light  upon  it,  so  that  it  is  hard  to  see  the  scruple, 
to  be  sure  of  it,  and  to  get  a  good  aim  at  it.  The  motives 
of  actions  are  their  favourite  hiding-places.  Temptations 
are  their  task.  Imaginary  cases  are  their  romps  and 
games.  And  predestination  is  to  them  like  the  top  of  a 
tree  on  which  a  bird  sits  and  mocks  us  on  a  Sunday, 
when  it  knows  we  have  no  gun  to  shoot  it  with.  When 
a  thing  is  dangerous  and  yet  not  dignified,  provoking  and 
yet  it  eludes  us,  despised  yet  it  disquiets  us,  absurd  and 
yet  we  cannot  resist  being  impressed  by  it,  then  thai 
thing  is  like  a  scruple.  We  scorn  it  even  while  we  hate 
and  fear  it.  Yet  we  are  angry  in  our  hatred,  and  uneasy 
in  our  contempt. 

From  the  subjects  let  us  pass  to  the  effects  of  scruples. 
They  are  three,  blindness,  indevotion,  and  laxity.  If 
scruples  proceed  from  ignorance,  they  also  increase  and 
deepen  it.  They  so  perturb  the  mind  that  all  spiritual 
discernment  is  impossible.  They  confuse  the  boundaries 
of  right  and  wrong.  They  remove  the  ancient  landmarks 
between  temptation  and  sin,  between  delectation  and  con- 
sent. They  ravel  mortal  and  venial  sic  inextricably  and 
indissolubly  together.  They  turn  precepts  into  couusels, 
and  counsels  into  precepts.  They  call  things  by  their 
wrong  names,  and  incur  the  prophet's  woe  of  putting 
bitter  for  sweet  and  sweet  for  bitter.  The  blind  can 
neither  lead  the  blind,  nor  walk  safely  on  his  own  road. 
The  spiritual  life  is  brought  to  a  halt,  which  must  be  final 
unless  we  can  break  through  the  enemy's  lines.  This  is 
the  first  effect  of  scrupulosity ;  and  like  the  first  of  Mon- 
sieur le  Maire's  reasons  for  not  firing  a  salute  for  Henri 
Quatre,  namely,  that  he  had  no  cannon,  it  might  super 
ne.de  the  necessity  of  investigating  the  other  effects,  seeing 


8152  SCRUPLES. 

that  this  first  she  has  brought  us  to  the  pass  of  a  dead 
halt.  But  as  I  am  writing  with  an  insatiable  hatred  of 
scruples,  like  the  wrath  with  which  a  man  persecutes  a 
hypocrite,  I  shall  proceed.  Let  them  be  anathematized 
in  every  possible  shape,  as  a  heresy  in  doctrine,  a  lawless- 
ness in  discipline,  and  a  corruption  in  morals. 

The  second  effect  then  of  scruples  is  indevotion.  This 
is  as  much  as  saying  that  the  death  of  devotion  is  un 
favorable  to  devotion.  But  how  is  it  that  they  kill  devo- 
tion ?  Devotion  is  peace,  and  they  are  trouble.  Devotion 
is  single-minded,  and  they  are  legion.  Devotion  is  docile, 
and  they  are  disobedience.  Devotion  worships  God,  and 
they  worship  self.  Devotion  lives  on  holy  food,  and  their 
life  is  sustained  by  corrupting  the  food  on  which  it  lives. 
They  prevent  the  light  of  prayer  from  entering  our  per- 
turbed  minds.  They  interrupt  the  operations  of  the  sacra- 
ments, and  even  make  them  prisoners.  They  obscure  our 
faith,  weaken  our  hope,  and  relax  our  charity.  They 
have  all  the  bad  effects  of  temptations  without  any  of  the 
good  ones.  But  listen  to  the  story  of  the  old  Cardinal  of 
Vitry,  out  of  Surius.  Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a 
pious  Cistercian  who  was  silly  enough  to  resolve  to  win 
his  way  back  again  to  the  state  of  primitive  innocence. 
What  he  went  through,  it  would  be  long  to  tell.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  he  could  not  attain  his  object,  and  he  felt 
painfully  how  far  he  was  falling  short.  If  when  he  ate, 
there  was  at  all  a  nice  taste  in  the  food,  he  was  miserable. 
If  the  least  indeliberate  ripple  of  anger  came  over  him, 
he  was  distracted.  If  he  fell  into  a  trifling  imperfection, 
he  magnified  it  into  a  mortal  sin,  and  was  crushed.  From 
this  excess  of  scruples  he  fell  into  a  profound  sadness,  and 
from  this  sadness  he  tumbled,  as  all  sad  men  do,  down 


SCRUPLES.  3  IS 

the  precipice  of  despair.  All  hope  of  his  eternal  salva- 
tion being  now  gone,  he  ceased  to  frequent  the  sacra- 
ments ;  for  as  S.  Bernard  says,  tribulation  had  begotten 
pusillanimity,  and  pusillanimity  perturbation,  and  pertur- 
bation despair,  and  despair  had  slain.  The  monks  were 
broken-hearted.  0  how  fervently  they  recommended 
their  poor  brother  to  God  !  They  admonished  him  with 
sage  counsels.  They  rebuked  him  with  sharp  reproofs. 
But  all  was  in  vain.  Fortunately  a  saint  was  at  hand, 
the  Blessed  Mary  of  Oignies,  and  God  permitted  her  to 
work  a  miracle  upon  this  poor  son  of  St.  Bernard,  else 
says  the  cardinal,  he  would  doubtless  have  been  damned. 
For,  he  adds,  I  myself  have  known  a  man  gash  his  breast 
with  a  knife,  because  of  scruples,  and  'mother  who  for 
the  same  reason  shot  himself  through  the  throat  and  died. 
It  is  scruples  which  produce  wLat  the  French  physicians 
call  theomanie,  when  they  write  the  devil's  side  of  the 
lives  of  the  saints.  With  so  much  justice  did  that  grave 
Dominican,  Louis  of  Blois,  say  in  his  magisterial  manner, 
Excessive  fear  and  inordinate  pusillanimity,  great  sadness 
and  superfluous  scruples,  unquiet  cares  and  entangled 
solicitudes, — these  things  let  the  ascetic  avoid. 

The  third  effect  of  scruples  is  laxity.  Was  any  man 
ever  known  to  be  scrupulous  in  one  thing  who  was  not 
lax  in  another  ?  The  laxest  of  men  are  scrupulous  men 
It  is  very  natural.  In  the  first  place,  we  feel  as  if  we 
had  only  a  certain  amount  of  conscientiousness,  and  as 
we  have  expended  more  than  was  due  on  one  thing,  we 
have  all  the  less  left  for  another.  If  we  have  spent  it  all 
un  one  exaggerated  duty,  then  we  are  without  any  for  the 
rest  of  our  duties;  and  so  actions  slip  through,  which 
would  quite  surprise  us  if  we  could  get  a  good  view  of 
27 


814  SCRUPLES. 

them,  and  see  them  in  their  true  light.  A  man  who  has 
overworked  himself  is  always  the  most  dissipated  at  re- 
creation. Again,  scruples  are  a  tyranny  and  an  oppres- 
sion ;  and  submission  has  its  reactions.  These  drive  us 
to  seek  consolations  in  worldly  pleasures  and  natural 
affections,  in  all  that  is  bright,  beautiful  and  tender  round 
about  us ;  and  then  it  is  the  old  story  of  Annibal's 
soldiers  at  Capua.  Moreover  it  follows  from  our  blind- 
ness that  we  fight  the  wrong  foe,  and  then  are  too  tired 
to  fight  the  right  one;  but  surrender  our  sword.  Not 
knowing  one  thing  from  another,  we  strain  at  gnats  and 
pwallow  camels.  If  we  have  got  wrong  by  indiscretion 
in  austerities,  now  we  are  more  wrong  by  being  over  head 
and  ears  in  comforts.  A  man  who  has  no  spiritual 
pleasures  will  compensate  himself  by  the  abundance  of 
bis  bodily  enjoyments.  And  I  have  found  one  old  writer 
who  says  that  scruples  are  a  very  common  punishment 
for  soft  and  delicate  living.  And  what  is  all  this  but 
laxity  ?  And  it  is  the  scruples  which  the  devil  causes 
that  mostly  set  this  way. 

But  it  seems  as  if,  historically  speaking,  laxity,  an  al- 
lowable one,  for  the  Church  allowed  it,  was  the  first  cause 
of  scruples.  Rosignoli,  in  his  Discipline  of  Christian 
Perfection,  says  that  scruples  were  unknown  to  the 
ancient  fathers ;  and  he  attributes  this  to  the  old  canonical 
penances.  Men  satisfied  for  sin  much  more  amply  than 
they  do  now.  The  Church  Triumphant  in  joy  has  so 
widened  that  it  more  than  counterbalances  the  Church 
Militant  in  sorrow,  and  so  we  live  under  the  regime  of 
indulgences,  while  our  fathers  watched  and  fasted  under 
the  reign  of  canonical  penances.  The  relaxation  of  dis- 
cipline, says  Rosignoli,  has  produced  a  new  feature  in  th* 


SCRUPLES.  315 

Church,  namely,  scruples.  He  finds  no  fault.  No  true 
son  of  Ignatius  ever  blamed  the  Ohurch  He  only 
mentions  it  as  what  he  deems  a  fact.  I  will  say  nothing 
more  of  his  theory  than  that  it  is  striking  and  plausible. 
Gerson,  who  is  the  St.  Thomas  of  modern  spirituality,  is 
one  of  the  first  and  greatest  methodical  writers  on  scruples. 
St.  Antoninus  and  S.  Laurence  Justinian  come  near  to 
him ;  and  among  the  quite  modern  men,  Fenelon  is  by 
for  the  sweetest  and  most  admirable  scruple-doctor. 

Nevertheless  there  is  the  thing,  if  there  is  not  the 
name,  in  John  Cassian  :  and  something  so  like  it  in  St. 
Gregory  and  St.  Augustine,  that  the  portrait  can  hardly 
be  mistaken ;  and  Innocent  III.  comes  still  nearer  the 
mark.  Some  of  the  temptations  in  St.  John  Climacus 
would  in  modern  phrase  certainly  be  called  scruples.  At 
the  same  time  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  in  mediaeval  and 
modern  systems  of  spirituality  scruples  occupy  a  much 
more  important  place  than  in  the  moral  and  ascetical 
writings  of  the  Fathers,  or  the  anecdotical  chronicles  of 
the  saints  of  the  desert,  in  the  same  way  that  the  con 
fession  of  venial  sins  and  the  whole  question  of  confes- 
sions of  devotion  do.  The  very  term  confession  of  de- 
votion, which  has  quite  passed  into  ascetical  terminology, 
would  have  sounded  strange  to  ancient  ears;  though 
here  again  I  venture  to  suspect  that  there  was  more  of 
the  substance  of  the  thing  than  Gerson  seems  to  allow. 
However  this  is  not  the  place  for  a  history  of  ascetical 
theology.  The  devotional  instincts  and  phrases  of  the 
Fathers  are  subjects  of  intense  interest,  about  which  there 
is  sufficient  tradition  for  us  to  draw  some  interesting 
inferences. 

The  remedies  for  scruples  have  been  to  a  great  extent 


316  SCRUPLES. 

implied  in  what  has  already  been  sa\.d.  But  a  paragraph 
may  be  devoted  to  their  recapitulation.  They  find  their 
place  naturally  after  the  consideration  of  the  causes, 
signs,  subjects  and  effects  of  scruples.  As  the  want  of 
light  is  the  chief  cause  of  the  disease,  prayer  is  one  of 
its  principal  remedies.  We  should  meditate  on  cheering 
subjects,  and  cultivate  a  filial  devotion  to  our  Blessed 
Lady.  We  must  avoid  idleness,  and  nerve  ourselves  to 
bodily  mortification.  We  must  not  easily  change  oui 
director,  or  consult  many  persons,  which  is  the  way  with 
light-minded  men  and  shallow  spiritualists ;  neither  must 
we  talk  much  with  scrupulous  persons ;  for  the  complaint 
is  catching.  We  must  never  reflect  on  our  own  scruples ; 
but  act  as  we  see  other  good  people  act,  remembering 
that  God  is  our  Father,  and  the  Church  a  benignant 
mother.  The  precepts  of  God  and  the  Church,  says  St. 
Antoninus,  were  not  meant  to  take  away  from  us  all 
spiritual  sweetness,  as  the  excessive  interpretations  of  the 
scrupulous  and  timid  would  make  them  do,  neither  did 
the  Church  ever  intend  by  her  commands  to  oblige  any 
man  to  drive  himself  mad.  Therefore  no  precepts  bind 
in  a  time  or  place  when  the  observance  of  them  would  be 
considered  absurd  by  a  discreet  man.  But  the  boldest 
thing  of  all  was  the  practice  of  St.  Ignatius.  He  made 
a  man,  who  was  scrupulous  about  his  office,  recite  it  by 
the  sand  of  an  hour-glass,  and  leave  unsaid  what  was  not 
said  when  the  sand  ran  down.  And  the  patient  was 
cured.  We  must  be  careful  to  avoid  the  gestures  alluded 
to  before,  and  not  think  we  can  drive  a  wrong  thought 
out  of  our  minds  by  shaking  our  heads,  twitching  our 
hands,  or  beating  time  with  our  feet.  We  must  also 
take  the  mild  side  in  moral  questions.     Nothing  breeds 


SCRUPLES.  817 

scruples  so  much  as  taking  up  x  stricter  theory  than  you 
can  carry  out  in  the  details  of  your  practice.  The  man 
who  adopts  a  mild  theory,  does  it  consciously  and  on  a 
principle.  He  knows  how  far  he  can  concede,  and  where 
he  can  concede  no  longer.  The  rigorist  simply  cannot 
carry  out  his  views,  either  with  others  or  himself;  and 
then  being  left  without  a  principle  to  fall  back  upon,  he 
retires  ever  so  far,  as  far  as  you  will  push  him,  into  the 
allowance  of  things  plainly  wrong,  and  if  you  will,  much 
further.  The  commandments  of  God,  and  the  precepts 
of  the  Church,  and  the  reverence  of  the  Sacraments,  are 
in  much  safer  keeping  in  the  hands  of  a  mild  theologian 
than  of  a  stern  one  :  though  of  course  all  principles 
have  their  extremes  and  all  exaggerations  are  wrong. 
But  one  remedy  is  as  near  a  specific  as  anything  can  be 
called  a  specific  which  does  not  cure  an  incurable  disease, 
but  restores  a  man  to  a  passable  valetudinarian  kind  of 
spiritual  existence.  And  that  is  blind  obedience.  The 
word  explains  itself.  St.  Philip  says,  that  scruples  may 
make  a  truce  with  a  man,  when  once  they  have  beset 
him,  but  a  peace  never.  If  wc  have  been  once  scrupu- 
lous, and  our  scruples  have  not  been  from  God,  we  shall 
carry  at  the  least  the  weakness  of  them  and  the  nervous- 
ness of  them  to  the  grave,  and  as  Francesca  of  Pampeluna 
implies,  the  relics  of  them  into  purgatory  to  receive  their 
final  cautery.  But  blind  obedience  will  cure  us  to  all  in- 
tents and  purposes.  But  how  shall  we  kno\  "'t  we  are 
really  obedient?  0  most  scrupulous  of  questio*.  J  !  But 
it  shall  be  answered  kindly  though  briefly.  By  these 
three  signs.  When  you  never  say,  0  but  my  director  is 
not  a  saint,  or,  I  would  obey  if  I  was  scrupulous  and  if 
this  were  a  scruple,  or,  I  would  obev  if  I  couli  explain 
27* 


818  SCftTJfcLES. 

myself  to  my  confessor,  so  that  he  could  really  under- 
stand my  case. 

There  is  quite  x  consent  among  theologians  that  scru- 
pulous persons  are  allowed  certain  privileges ;  and  these 
will  come  next  under  consideration.  However  much 
there  may  be  of  their  own  fault  in  what  they  are  now 
Buffering,  nevertheless  the  reality  of  their  suffering  entitles 
them  to  certain  privileges.  These  privileges  however  are 
not  rights  only  ;  they  are  obligations  also.  If  they  were 
not  so,  the  invalids  for  whom  they  were  intended  would 
never  dare  to  use  them.  Their  first  privilege  of  scrupu- 
lous persons  is,  that  provided  the}'  are  so  instructed  by 
their  spiritual  guide,  it  is  allowable  for  them  to  aet  even 
with  the  fear  of  sinning  while  they  act.  Indeed  they  are 
bound  to  do  so;  and  if  they  refuse,  they  wilfully  commit 
five  separate  faults,  which  approach  more  or  less  near  to 
the  confines  of  venial  sin,  and  not  seldom  overstep  it. 
They  presumptuously  set  up  their  own  opinion  against 
that  of  their  director,  which  is  pride  and  obstinacy.  They 
refuse  him  the  obedience  due  to  him,  and  which  they 
nave  probably  promised  him.  They  hinder  their  own 
progress  in  the  spiritual  life,  and  so  hold  themselves  back 
from  the  perfection  to  which  their  state  of  life,  or  the 
grace  already  conferred  upon  them,  obliges  them.  In 
many  instances  they  hurt  their  bodily  health,  and  increase 
the  weakness  of  their  head  :  and  they  cause  their  common 
daily  duties  to  be  ill  performed,  inasmuch  as  they  put 
away  from  themselves  the  means  of  recovering  that  light 
and  peace  and  presence  of  Grod,  which  throw  the  lustre 
of  perfectior  over  our  ordinary  actions. 

Their  second  privilege  is  that  they  may  be  sure  they 
nave  not  committed  mortal  sin;  unless,  with  full  adver 


SCRUPLES.  319 

'tmce,  *hey  can  reverently  swear  that  they  have  dune  so 
The  reason  of  this  is  founded  on  the  impossibility  of  the 
will's  changing  unconsciously  in  one  moment  from  exces- 
sive fear  to  relaxation  of  morals.  It  is  true  that  scruples 
lead  to  laxity ;  but  they  neither  produce  it  by  an  instan- 
taneous change,- nor  do  they  introduce  it  into  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  scruple  itself.  The  obligation,  which  is  the 
counterpart  of  this  privilege,  is  that  they  should  not  con- 
fess as  mortal  sins  any  such  dubious  actions,  nor  abstain 
from  their  regular  communions  on  their  account.  But  in 
order  that  this  privilege  should  have  place,  one  or  more 
or  all  of  the  four  following  signs  should  be  discerned  in 
the  conduct  and  disposition  of  the  scrupulous  person.  He 
should  habitually  loathe  the  sin  to  which  he  fancies  he 
has  consented ;  so  that  it  may  be  clear  what  the  normal 
state  of  his  will  is  upon  the  matter.  As  soon  as  he  catches 
himself,  consciously,  delaying  on  the  image  of  temptation, 
he  should  have  made  some  sort  of  effort  and  experienced 
some  disquietude.  If  he  has  been  thrown  into  an  oppo:  - 
tuuity  of  committing  the  sin,  and  has  not  done  so,  we 
may  argue  that  his  will  is  sound  and  whole ;  and  if  he 
cannot  remember  whether  he  was  all  the  while  fully  aware 
of  the  temptations  that  were  besieging  him,  he  is  not  to 
be  disquieted,  but  the  doubt  is  to  go  in  his  favour. 

The  third  privilege  of  scrupulous  persons  is  that  they 
are  not  bound  to  examine  matters  so  exactly  as  others. 
Their  infirmity  is  the  reason  of  this.  They  are  spiritual 
invalids,  and  the  life  of  an  invalid  is  a  life  of  dispensation, 
by  no  less  an  authority  than  that  of  God  Himself.  The 
probability  is  they  will  never  have  robust  health  after 
this,  and  therefore  the  slow  strength  of  convalescence 
ehould  be  husbanded.     A  minute  or  reiterated  examina- 


320  SCRUPLES. 

tion  of  conscience  or  of  motives,  on  the  part  of  a  sorupu 
lous  man,  would  be  equivalent  to  the  tying  and  untying 
of  the  bandages  of  a  wound,  where  stillness  of  the  limb 
and  compression  of  the  hurt  were  just  the  two  things 
which  the  surgeon  commanded.  Neither,  as  before,  ar 
they  to  be  allowed  in  such  fretful  examinations  without 
grave  cause  and  the  permission  of  their  director.  For  this 
privilege,  like  the  rest,  must  be  an  obligation  io  the  use. 
We  certainly  care  more  for  our  bodies  than  for  our 
souls.  Yet  it  is  only  reasonable  that  what  we  readily 
submit  to  in  the  case  of  the  one,  we  should  at  all  events 
undergo  with  a  good  grace  in  the  case  of  the  other.  If 
we  have  broken  our  collar  bone,  or  got  the  cholera,  we 
know  that  we  have  a  certain  course  of  treatment  to  go 
through  which  nature  does  not  relish ;  and  we  do  not 
quarrel  with  our  surgeon  or  physician  if  he  combines 
firmness  with  his  gentleness,  if  he  makes  us  be  still  vbm 
we  want  to  stir,  or  will  not  let  us  have  the  food  we  have 
set  our  minds  upon.  So  we  must  make  up  our  mind  to 
let  our  spiritual  physician  treat  us  when  we  are  sick  of 
scruples.  Wonderfully  difficult  as  we  think  our  questions 
of  casuistry  to  be,  he  will  show  us  no  sign  of  uncertainty 
or  hesitation  ;  so  that  we  shall  doubt  whether  he  ha3 
weighed  it  well  or  heard  us  rightly.  He  will  give  us  no 
reasons  for  what  he  advises ;  for  such  reasons  would  only 
be  the  seed-plots  of  new  scruples.  We  must  be  very  open 
with  him,  though  this  will  cost  us  not  a  little.  At  the 
same  time  we  must  have  a  real  scruple  of  exaggerating  in 
confession.  This  is  a  common  fault  of  scrupulous  persons. 
They  think  they  make  sure  of  an  adequate  explanation 
by  an  exaggerated  one,  which  is  not  only  an  error,  but 
an  error  on  the  worst  side  of  the  two.  Much  less  mischief 
would  come  of  an  undue  extenuation 


SCRUPLES.  321 

He  will  be  very  gentle  to  us  while  we  are  docile, 
but  short  and  abrupt  when  we  are  pertinacious.  He 
will  not  let  us  repeat  things  confession  after  confession, 
though  we  are  yearning  to  do  so.  He  will  make  us 
learn  contempt  of  our  own  scruples  from  his  contempt 
of  them;  and  this  is  as  bad  as  Greek  epigrams  to  a  fourth 
form  boy.  He  will  forbid  us  to  confess  scruples,  and  h 
will  accustom  us  to  go  to  communion  without  absolution 
which,  with  our  morbid  sensitiveness,  is  worse  than  great 
physical  pain.  He  will  stint  our  allowance  of  time  for 
the  examination  of  our  conscience,  and  we  shall  conse- 
quently go  to  it  at  first  with  such  a  nervous  precipitation, 
that  before  we  have  finished  our  act  of  the  presence  of 
God,  the  time  will  have  run  out.  He  will  also  force  upon 
us  a  compulsory  promptitude  in  deciding  whether  to  act 
or  not  in  any  particular  case,  unless  the  thing  looks  like  a 
sin  at  the  very  first  sight  of  it.  And  when  we  go  to  him 
with  long  faces,  because  we  have  made  some  mistakes  in 
consequence  of  acting  on  that  principle,  he  will  treat  us 
with  hastiness,  and  our  difficulty  with  contempt.  He  will 
never  let  us  know  whether  he  thinks  we  are  mending  or 
not,  but  will  put  off  our  questions  with  some  unmeaning 
common-places.  Rest  being  of  all  things  that  of  which 
we  feel  the  greatest  need,  he  will  allow  us  none,  but  fag 
us  unmercifully  with  endless'  and  distracting  occupations. 
When  we  have,  as  many  have,  scruples  without  being 
habitually  scrupulous,  that  is,  when  we  are  over  exact  in 
one  matter,  and  proportionately  free  and  easy  in  another, 
he  will  be  severe  to  us,  and  will  make  us  look  only  at  our 
laxity.  In  these  cases  we  shall  try  his  patience,  and  give 
him  much  difficult  and  tiresome  work,  before  he  can  dis- 
charge us  from  his  hospital.  We  are  patients  who  give 
v 


322 


SCRUPLES. 


more  trouble,  and  less  credit,  than  any  otheis  with  whom 
he  has  to  do. 

Persons  recently  converted  have  scruples  about  their 
general  confession,  either  as  to  its  fulness  or  its  sorrow. 
A  spiritual  physician  will  allow  them  only  to  reflect  gene- 
rally on  their  past  sins,  and  very  often  will  prohibit  even 
that.  He  will  never  allow  them,  in  a  state  of  scruple,  to 
dwell  on  particular  sins,  least  of  all  on  circumstances  of 
sins.  For  sadness  is  a  snare  which  the  devil  ordinarily 
sets  at  this  stage  of  the  spiritual  life.  When  their  scru- 
ples have  passed  away,  he  may  possibly  allow  them  to 
make  a  quiet  general  confession,  and  after  that,  never  let 
them  mention  anything  else  belonging  to  the  past,  unless 
they  are  either  wholly  without  scruple,  or  able  to  swear 
that  they  have  remembered  some  sin,  which  they  knew  tc 
be  both  mortal  and  unconfessed.  For  the  sin  has  been 
already  indirectly  remitted;  and  we  are  not  bound  to  the 
material  integrity  of  past  confessions,  with  so  grave  an 
inconvenience  as  a  relapse  into  scruples.  If  such  persons 
tell  their  director  that  they  shall  be  more  at  peace,  if  he 
will  allow  them  to  speak,  he  will  still  refuse,  and  will  tell 
them  to  offer  up  that  inward  disquietude  as  a  sacrifice  to 
God.  It  is  a  fearful  evil  to  have  a  convert  scrupulous. 
]  fear  the  chances  are  against  his  ever  making  a  tho- 
roughly good  catholic.  Scruples  fill  his  veins  with  the 
Biuret  poison  of  self-opinionatedness,  just  when  he  has 
eterything  to  learn  and  everything  to  unlearn,  and  obe- 
d»-mce  is  his  sole  appointed  means  of  thus  changing  his 
w  tole  inner  man.  Still,  it  is  our  comfort  to  know  that 
tie  Holy  Ghost  has  reparatory  ways  and  means,  which 
&Ude  the  definitions    of  our  poor  spiritual  science,  bu« 


SCRUPLBS.  828 

whose  marvellous  healing  operations  we  are  continually 
witnessing. 

But  I  dare  not  leave  the  subject  without  sayiug  a  few 
words  about  reasonable  scruples.  There  are  such  things. 
Theology  leaves  no  doubt  upon  the  matter;  and  nothing 
of  what  I  have  said  will  apply  to  them.  A  prudent  fear 
makes  a  scruple  reasonable,  just  as  a  vain  fear  makes  it 
unreasonable.  Thou  hast  commanded  Thy  command- 
ments to  be  kept  most  diligently,  says  the  psalmist.  St. 
Gregory  writing  to  St.  Augustine,  of  Canterbury,  and  S. 
Clement  V.,  resolving  some  doubts  in  the  Franciscan  rule, 
admit  of  these  scruples,  and  teach  that  they  are  to  be 
respected.  For  a  man  is  not  rightly  called  scrupulous, 
who  fears  and  loves  God  to  a  nicety,  as  the  saying  is,  that 
is,  who  strives  to  avoid  every  venial  sin,  and  every  least 
imperfection.  The  filial  feelings  of  such  men,  and  the 
tranquillity  of  their  solicitude  for  perfection,  show  that 
they  are  not  scrupulous  in  the  evil  sense.  There  is  such 
a  thing  as  a  wide  conscience,  and  it  is  wide  from  the  want 
of  reasonable  scruples.  I  only  say  this  to  prevent  being 
misunderstood.  It  were  better  always  to  use  the  word 
scruple  in  a  bad  sense,  and  to  call  reasonable  scruples  by 
their  much  truer  and  more  honorable  name  of  conscien- 
tiousness. 

Let  not  the  imperfect  fear,  says  St.  Augustin,  only  let 
them  advance.  Yet,  because  I  do  not  let  them  fear,  let 
them  not  on  that  account  love  imperfection,  or  remain  in 
it  when  they  have  found  themselves  there.  Only  let 
them  advance  as  far  as  in  them  lies,  and  all  is  well. 

God  be  praised !  we  have  done,  done  little  certainly, 
but  all  we  can,  for  our  scrupulous  patients.  Npw  let  up 
leavo  this  dose  ward,  and  gc  out  and  breathe. 


324  THE  OFFICE  OF   SPIRITUAL  DIRECTOR. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE   OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR. 

The  present  chapter  brings  us  to  the  most  vexed  ques* 
kion  of  the  whole  spiritual  life,  the  office  of  a  spiritual 
director.  There  is  no  subject  about  which  there  is  a 
more  harmonious  consent  up  to  a  certain  point,  nor  one 
upon  which  beyond  that  point  there  is  a  greater  dis- 
crepancy of  conflicting  opinions.  Writers,  who  live  in 
communities  and  are  members  of  religious  houses  are 
prone  to  exaggerate  the  director's  office,  to  confound  it 
with  that  of  a  religious  superior  or  a  novice-master,  and 
to  make  it  unreal  to  persons  living  in  the  world.  For 
when  we  make  a  man  try  to  do  more  than  he  can,  he  in- 
evitably ends  by  doing  less,  and  the  fault  is  ours,  not  his. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  we  take  vague  or  lax  views  of  the 
matter,  we  run  the  risk  of  coming  under  the  censure  of 
the  eleventh  proposition  of  the  Illuminati  and  the  sixty- 
sixth  of  Molinos,  propositions  unwittingly  enunciated, 
almost  in  the  words  condemned,  by  Catholics  in  common 
conversation  again  and  again.  It  is  difficult,  therefore, 
to  write  of  this  subject  with  becoming  moderation,  and 
yet  it  is  as  necessary  as  it  is  difficult.  The  present  chap- 
ter will  contain  no  theory,  but  report  fairly  both  sides  of 
the  Catholic  tradition  as  it  is  to  be  found  both  in  ancient 
books  and  modern,  inclining  perhaps  a  little  to  the  ancient, 
because  on  this  point  of  asceticism  as  on  most  others,  I 
find  in  them  an  absence  of  exaggeration  which  I  often 


THE   OFFICE    OF    SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR.  325 

desiderate  in  modern  systems.  My  object  will  be  to 
prevent  any  opinion  of  my  own  escaping  on  the  subject; 
or  if  I  fail  in  this,  that  it  should  be  only  such  an  expres- 
sion of  opinion  as  is  unavoidable  when  an  author  is  com- 
menting on  those  who  have  gone  before  him. 

The  first  thing  is  to  be  clear,  and  to  be  clear  we  must 
sometimes  be  guilty  of  some  repetition,  which,  however, 
is  a  less  evil  than  obscurity.  I  shall  divide  my  subject 
then  as  follows.  First,  I  shall  speak  of  the  importance 
of  a  director ;  secondly,  I  shall  show  what  is  the  meaning 
of  having  one;  thirdly,  the  necessity  of  him;  fourthly, 
the  choice  of  him ;  fifthly,  the  change  of  hiin ;  sixthly, 
the  true  Catholic  idea  of  our  intercourse  with  him ;  and 
seventhly,  the  suffering  he  causes  us.  It  is  not  easy 
always  to  decide  under  what  head  to  arrange  particular 
things,  but  when  we  have  handled  these  seven  points,  we 
shall  certainly  leave  no  important  question  unconsidered 

I  am  to  speak  first  of  the  importance  of  having  a 
director.  The  practical  and  devotional  system  of  the 
Catholic  Church  is  almost  a  greater  trial  of  our  faith  than 
its  doctrinal  system.  No  part  of  it  has  been  more 
attacked  than  this  office  of  a  spiritual  director,  not  only 
by  heretics  outside  the  Church,  but  by  ill-read  or  luke- 
warm Catholics  in  it.  We  may  say,  therefore,  what  we 
are  in  the  habit  of  saying  of  devotion  to  our  B.  Lady, 
that  this  dead  set  against  it  is  the  measure  of  the  devil's 
dislike  and  dread  of  it.  The  vital  energies  of  the  Church 
are  often  laid  up  very  secretly  and  in  unlikely  places,  and 
the  miserable  instincts  of  heresy  may  often  perform  for 
Catholics  the  same  office  that  certain  dogs  are  said  to  do 
for  men  hunting  for  a  particular  sort  of  earth-nut.  Thus, 
heresy  not  only,  gets  our  truth  defined,  but  it  indicates  the 
28 


32G  THE   OFFICE    OF   SPIRITUAL  DIRECTOR. 

hidden  virtue  of  each  particular  truth.  It  is  certainly  t* 
take  a  yoke  upon  ourselves  to  have  a  director.  But  un- 
less we  are  prepared  for  it,  it  is  really  useless,  not 
unfrequently  worse  than  useless,  to  attempt  a  spiritual  or 
interior  life.  We  may  possibly  be  safe  without  a  director, 
if  we  choose  to  sit  down  in  the  dust  and  ashes  of  low 
attainment ;  but  not  otherwise.  Not  only  do  very  good 
people  go  wrong  for  want  of  a  director,  and  that  in  ex- 
ternal work  for  the  Church  as  well  as  in  the  management 
of  their  devotional  privacy ;  but  it  often  seems  as  if  the 
amount  of  their  goodness  only  increased  the  extent  and 
mischief  of  their  error.  This  comes  to  pass  in  two  ways. 
In  the  one  case  it  is  self-love  which  is  always  making  a 
man  drift  imperceptibly  away  from  high  principle,  so  that, 
undirected,  he  is  continually  settling  down  to  a  lower 
level  than  the  first  aspired  to,  or  actually  believes  him- 
self to  be  occupying;  and  these  settlements,  like  those  of 
a  new  house,  are  only  discovered  by  the  ugly  irregular 
cracks  afterwards.  In  the  other  case,  it  is  the  want  of 
discretion  which  does  the  evil.  It  makes  a  man  afraid 
that  his  fervor  is  going,  because  his  sensible  ardor  is  less  j 
and  this  runs  him  first  into  singularity  and  then  into 
downright  folly.  These  are  the  two  ways  in  which 
devout  laymen  are  often  broken  to  pieces,  and  cast  aside 
by  God  as  unmanageable  and  misshapen  vessels.  They 
who  might  have  been  a  St.  Edmund,  St.  Louis,  or  St.  El- 
zear,  turn  out  to  be  thorns  in  the  side  of  the  Church, 
wounding  her  as  far  as  their  littleness  can  go.  This  is 
the  reason  why  so  many  who  live  to  reform  abuses  die 
out  of  grace.  It  would  not  be  surprising  to  know  that 
the  Church  had  actually  lost  great  saints  by  this  mistake 
When  we  look  over  the  multitude  of  devout  souls,  what 


THE   OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL  DIRECTOR.  327 

is  it  that  excites  our  keenest  regret  ?  It  is  the  waste  of 
grace,  it  is  the  evaporation  of  high  principles,  it  is  the 
brittleness  of  noble  purposes;  and  by  far  the  greatest 
proportion  of  this  is  from  the  want  of  a  spiritual  director. 
Can  more  be  said  to  show  his  importance  ?  All  the 
saints  are  of  one  mind :  to  have  i  director,  to  be  open 
and  full  with  him,  and  to  obey  him  without  scruple  and 
without  bondage,  behold !  this  is  half  the  battle  of  the 
spiritual  life ! 

Secondly,  we  must  consider  what  the  having  a  director 
means,  what  it  looks  like  as  an  external  fact.  It  gives  to 
the  life  of  a  person  in  the  world  the  similitude  of  a  mo- 
nastic life,  as  if  they  were  members  of  an  uncloistered 
order.  For  it  is  impossible  he  should  stop  at  being  a 
merely  spiritual  counsellor.  Prayer  and  mortification, 
temptations  and  the  sacraments,  are  certainly  very  diffi- 
cult matters,  and  give  rise  to  a  multitude  of  cases  of  con. 
science,  which  it  would  be  neither  safe  nor  easy  for  us  to 
decide  for  ourselves.  But  I  doubt  whether  external  con- 
duct and  temporal  affairs  are  not  more  prolific  of  casuistry, 
and  do  not  breed  a  much  greater  amount  of  spiritual  per- 
plexity. The  adjustment  of  domestic  duties  requires  as 
much  discernment  as  turning  a  point  in  mental  prayer. 
The  exactions  of  society  are  far  more  bewildering  to  see 
our  way  through,  than  the  uncertainties  of  a  cloudy  voca- 
tion. It  is  a  marvel  to  me  that  persons  should  fancy  that 
a  director  in  purely  spiritual  things,  should  be  a  person 
of  higher  attainments  than  one  who  is  to  guide  us  in 
spiritualizing  worldly  things.  It  seems  to  me  that  this 
last  requires  so  much  more  wisdom,  so  much  more 
science,  so  much  closer  a  union  with  God.  It  is  generally 
the  case  that  the  proofs  of  authors  who  write  good  hands 


328  TIIE   OFFICE   OF    SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR. 

are  more  full  of  mistakes,  than  the  proofs  of  those  who 
write  bad  hands;  because  the  good  hands  are  given  to  the 
boys,  the  orabbed  ones  to  skilful  men.  So  it  may  be  in 
the  matter  of  direction.  A  priest  may  be  bold  to  direct 
a  good  nun  in  a  supernatural  state  of  prayer,  who  if  he 
were  humble  and  sagacious,  would  tremble  to  steer  a 
princess  to  perfection  through  the  intricacies  of  town 
court,  and  country  life. 

The  spiritual  life  does  not  so  much  consist  in  a  quantity 
of  devotions,  ceremonies,  beliefs,  and  peculiar  exercises, 
as  in  the  supernaturalizing  of  our  common  life;  in  a 
word,  it  does  not  consist  so  much  in  certain  things  as  in 
a  manner  of  doing  all  things.  Thus  every  temporal 
affair,  every  worldly  relationship,  and  every  social  duty, 
brings  its  own  case  of  conscience  along  with  it,  and, 
though  men  can  solve  many  of  these  for  themselves  at 
once,  and  get  an  increasing  facility  of  solving  others,  yet 
persons  in  the  world  see  so  little  ahead  of  themselves,  be- 
cause of  the  dust  that  is  round  about  them,  that  there 
must  always  remain  a  number  of  problems  which  they 
must  be  content  to  leave  to  the  solution  of  others.  Noth- 
ing then  can  be  more  shallow  than  the  complaints  which 
men  make  of  spiritual  direction  as  meddling  with  tempo- 
ral affairs.  Its  very  office  is  to  spiritualize  these  by  in- 
fusing into  them  supernatural  motives,  and  helping  the 
blindness  or  the  cowardice  of  self-love  to  bring  them  all 
under  the  obedience  of  Christ,  and  into  subjection  to  the 
maxims  of  the  Gospel. 

No  experience  can  hinder  the  astonishment  which  we 
must  all  of  us  feel  at  occasional  interior  revelations  of  the 
.mmense  hold  which  the  world  still  has  upon  us,  when  wo 
have  been  serving  God  for  years.     Quite  irrespectively  of 


THE   OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL.   DIRECTOR.  329 

liu,  worldly  principles  possess  us.  They  have  shaped  our 
minds,  saturated  our  affections,  warped  our  will,  and  in- 
fluenced even  the  way  in  which  our  senses  report  external 
objects.  They  lie  imbedded  in  our  language,  and  our 
language  tells  upon  our  thoughts,  and  our  thoughts  in- 
sinuate motive  lightning-like  into  the  very  first  steps  of 
our  actions.  Now  spiritual  direction,  simply  regarded  as 
a  fact,  is  a  witness  against  the  world,  and  we  commit  our- 
selves to  its  testimony.  It  ignores  the  world's  own  view 
of  itself  in  everything,  treats  its  pretensions  with  con- 
tempt, speaks  of  it  as  an  imposture,  and  defines  it  to  be 
merely  a  vile  criminal  condemned  to  be  burnt,  and  the 
hour  of  its  execution  only  uncertainly  delayed.  The 
world,  therefore,  finds  a  voice  in  such  men  as  Michelet, 
and  expresses  its  natural  resentment  with  a  strength 
which  is  amusing.  I  say,  natural  resentment,  because  it 
must  necessarily  misunderstand  the  nature  of  spiritual 
direction,  and  it  certainly  exaggerates  both  its  influence 
and  its  extent.  Direction  must  needs  have  a  look  of  con- 
spiracy to  the  world's  eye,  which  is  peculiarly  odious. 
Yet  the  view  is  not  wholly  incorrect;  for  what  is  the 
Church  but  a  divine  conspiracy  against  the  world  ?  More- 
over, just  as  certain  words,  seemingly  innocuous  in  them- 
selves, drive  lunatics  into  a  phrensy,  so  the  interference 
of  an  ecclesiastical  tie  with  natural  ones  exasperates  the 
world  in  a  preternatural  way.  We  Catholics  must  bear 
this  in  mind  when  the  world  talks  to  us  of  spiritual 
direction.  The  interior  life  is  necessarily  an  unflinching 
life-long  variance  with  the  world. 

Our  third  consideration  must  be  of  the  necessity  of  a 
director.     This  is  a  most  important  part  of  our  subject, 
and    I   shall    attempt   to   prove  it   from    six    different 
28* 


330  THE   OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR. 

sources,  from  authority,  from  common  sense,  from  the 
nature  of  the  thing,  from  the  peculiarity  of  the  spiritual 
life,  from  the  genius  of  the  director's  office,  and  from  the 
universality  of  the  need. 

The  argument  from  authority  may  be  divided  into  three 
heads,  the  practice  of  the  Church,  the  condemnation  of 
heresy,  and  the  drawings  of  the  Holy  Ghost  acknow- 
ledged by  orthodox  writers  on  the  discernment  of  spirits. 

According  to  the  teaching  of  the  fathers,  the  office  of 
spiritual  director  is  shadowed  forth  in  Scripture  in  the 
relations  of  Samuel  to  Heli,  Peter  to  Cornelius,  and  Ana- 
nias to  Paul.  But  without  stopping  to  inquire  if  the  in- 
ference is  not  somewhat  wide,  let  us  look  at  the  undoubted 
practice  of  the  Church.  In  the  dialogues  of  St.  Gre- 
gory, Peter  asks  if  Honoratus  had  a  director.  Simeon 
Metaphrastes  says  that  when  Pachomius  wished  to  learn 
the  secrets  of  a  more  perfect  life,  he  took  Palemon  for 
his  director.  He  also  tells  us  that  S.  Chrysostom  was 
made  spiritual  director  in  his  monastery,  and  the  same 
office  was  imposed  on  S.  Dorotheus,  who  was  also  the 
special  director  of  S.  Dositheus.  St.  John  Damascene 
was  appointed  spiritual  director  to  the  novices  in  his 
Laura.  Euthymius  told  Sabas  to  take  Theoctistus  for  his 
director.  S.  Dorotheus  himself  had  been  directed  by 
Seridus,  so  that  the  spiritual  direction  of  Dositheus  was 
by  that  time  a  formed  tradition.  John  the  Prophet  was 
directed  by  Barsanuphius ;  and  George  the  Arsilate  was 
the  spiritual  director  of  St.  John  Slimacus.  Theodore 
the  Studite  put  himself  under  the  direction  of  the  monk 
Plato,  who  had  been  formed  by  the  direction  of  Theoc- 
tistus, which  he  thus  handed  on,  as  S.  Sabas  handed  on 
(tie  same  tradition  in  his  monastery.     S.  Romuaid  was 


THE   OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR.  331 

directed  by  Marinus,  and  Peter  Damian  by  Leo  the  Her- 
mit,  who  he  says  was  not  merely  his  "  accomplice"  and 
his  friend,  but  his  father,  doctor,  master,  and  elected 
lord,  who  so  excelled  in  the  profundity  of  spiritual  coun- 
sels that  his  words  were  oracles  to  all  who  consulted  him. 
St.  Antoninus  was  so  famous  a  spiritual  director  in  hia 
day  that  he  was  called  the  Father  of  Counsels.  John 
Cantacuzene  tells  us,  and  this  brings  us  to  the  spiritual 
direction  of  laymen  in  the  world,  that  when  the  emperor 
Andronicus  was  near  his  death,  he  asked  for  his  director, 
and  when  the  master  of  the  palace  sent  a  monk  whom  the 
emperor  did  not  know,  he  burst  into  tears  and  insisted 
upon  having  his  own  director.  The  emperor  Manuel 
made  Macarius,  whom  he  designates  as  his  spiritual 
director,  one  of  the  executors  of  his  will.  When  the 
emperor  John  went  to  the  council  of  Ferrara,  he  took 
with  him,  it  is  said,  his  spiritual  director  Gregory,  a  ceno- 
bite  who  was  afterwards  patriarch  of  Constantinople,  as 
Pontanus  mentions  in  his  notes  to  the  history  of  George 
Phrantzes,  where  he  shows  that  these  men  were  not  mere 
confessors  but  spiritual  directors  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
word.  The  modern  tradition  is  too  well  known  to  make 
instances  necessary. 

In  accordance  with  the  practice  of  the  Church  have 
been  her  condemnations  of  those  who  taught  an  opposite 
doctrine.  In  1623  the  Illuminati  taught  that  there  was 
no  need  of  a  spiritual  director,  but  that  each  soul  was  to 
trust  to  the  sacred  inspirations  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  to 
follow  them  at  all  hazards.  This  doctrine  was  condemned 
by  the  Spanish  Inquisition  whose  judgment  is  applauded 
by  theologians.  Molinos  held  that  the  Catho/ic  notion 
of  a  spiritual  director  was  ludicrous  and  new  (doctriua 


332  THE   OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR. 

risu  digna  et  nova  in  ecclesia  Dei),  and  this  proposition 
was  condemned  together  with  the  sixty-eighth,  in  which 
he  dispenses  spiritual  men  from  direction  as  able  to  guide 
themselves  by  their  own  private  spirit. 

Madame  de  Chantal  recognized  by  certain  signs  that 
St.  Francis  of  Sales  was  the  man  whom  God  had  destined 
to  be  her  spiritual  director ;  and  mystical  writers  give  us 
certain  indications  as  being  assuredly  from  the  Holy  Ghost 
in  this  matter.  One  of  them  is  an  indefinable  attraction 
which  in  our  best  times  we  never  distrust,  and  which  im- 
pels us  to  repose  entire  confidence  in  some  servant  of  God, 
and  forms  a  union  of  grace  between  his  soul  and  ours. 
Another  is  a  peace  which  spreads  all  through  our  soul 
like  a  quiet  inundation,  whenever  he  speaks  to  us,  resolves 
our  doubts,  or  dissipates  our  scruples.  He  seems  as  it 
were  to  magnetize  us  with  a  holy  joy,  which  is  entirely 
free  from  any  natural  esteem  or  personal  attachment  t6 
himself.  Another  is  a  certain  ardor  or  vehement  desire 
to  be  all  for  God,  which  comes  over  us  when  we  are  with 
him,  or  is  inspired  in  us  by  his  words;  and  another  is  a 
certain  impression  of  mingled  respect,  obedience,  and  do- 
cility, which  makes  us  see  God,  and  God  only,  in  him  and 
his  guidance. 

The  second  argument  for  the  necessity  of  a  director  is 
from  common  sense.  Cases  of  conscience  are  continually 
arising;  many  of  them  are  very  difficult,  and  these  diffi- 
culties can  only  be  surmounted  by  practice,  experience, 
study,  and  authority.  The  generality  of  men  obviously 
are  without  these  requisites.  That  of  authority  is  espe- 
cially to  be  dwelt  upon.  Knots  which  cannot  be  untied 
must  be  cut ;  and  this  authority  alone  can  do.  We  must 
consider  also  the  proverbial  impossibility  of  judging  in 


THE   OFFICE   OF    SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR.  338 

>ur  own  cause;  and  if  in  addition  to  this  we  w^igh  well 
the  character  of  self-love,  with  which  unfortunately  we 
have  only  too  intimate  an  acquaintance,  we  shall  be  con- 
vinced that  the  place,  which  a  spiritual  director  occupies 
in  the  ascetical  system  of  the  Church,  is  nothing  more 
than  an  expression  of  her  maternal  common  sense. 

The  third  argument  is  very  like  its  predecessor;  it  is 
from  the  reason  of  the  thing.  The  interior  life  is,  as  we 
shall  see  by  and  by,  full  of  delusions  and  dangers.  This 
being  so,  the  analogy  of  all  other  arts  and  sciences  would 
go  to  prove  that  we  must  have  a  pedagogue,  some  one  to 
teach  us,  to  keep  us  in  the  right  way,  to  prevent  our 
losing  time  and  name  in  making  old  discoveries,  to  hinder 
our  following  the  fatuous  fires  which  have  led  others  into 
absurdity  or  ruin,  to  show  us  how  to  observe,  to  operate, 
or  to  experimentalize,  to  test  our  results,  to  correct  our 
processes,  and  to  cheer  our  fatigue.  The  spiritual  life  is 
a  daily  dying  to  self  and  a  daily  carrying  of  the  cross ; 
and  who  has  the  courage  to  go  on  chastising  himself  all 
his  life  long,  if  he  has  not  some  one  by  his  side  at  once 
to  animate  and  moderate,  prohibit  or  suspend,  his  holy 
cruelty  ?  We  have  all  of  us  great  confidence  in  ourselves ; 
yet  none  of  us  have  sufficient  self-dependence  to  enable 
us  to  attach  much  weight  to  our  own  consolations  of  our- 
selves. No  man  can  console  himself.  He  does  not 
believe  in  himself  with  sufficient  infallibility.  Consola- 
tion is  a  social  thing.  And  can  any  one,  until  he  is 
actually  fabricated  into  a  saint,  live  an  unworldly  lif? 
without  consolation  ?  A  man  is  always  very  wise  and 
right  in  his  own  eyes ;  yet  I  doubt  if  the  man  is  to  be 
found  who  can  habitually  act  without  scruple  on  his  own 
ideas      No  man  has  invariably  light  to  find  out  when  he 


d34  THE   OFFICE   OF    SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR. 

is  wrong,  nor  patience  to  wait  when  he  ought  to  wait,  and 
to  refrain  himself  in  trial.  Our  faculty  of  deceiving  our- 
selves is  uncommonly  versatile;  and  prayer,  suffering, 
and  action,  the  three  departments  of  a  director,  are  from 
their  own  nature  the  favorite  provinces  of  self-deceit.  To 
walk  alone  is  impossible;  and  to  wish  to  walk  alone  is 
against  humility,  and  the  lack  of  humility  bars  all  pro- 
gress, even  in  merely  moral  excellence.  Moreover  expe- 
rience shows,  however  little  it  was  to  have  been  expected 
beforehand,  that  a  man  without  a  director  runs  at  last 
into  mere  external  practices  and  a  barren  formality.  For 
a  man  only  grows  interior  in  proportion  as  he  gains  the 
habit  of  renouncing  his  own  favorite  views,  or  wills,  or 
ways.  Hence,  as  a  question  of  metaphysics,  it  must  result 
partly  from  the  nature  of  man's  mind  and  partly  from 
this  subject  of  the  spiritual  life  to  which  it  is  applying 
itself,  that  a  man  who  stands  alone  will  have  an  exceed- 
ingly limited  range  of  vision,  and  will  often  see  objects 
dim  and  distorted  even  within  that  narrow  range. 

My  fourth  argument  has  been  almost  anticipated  in  the 
third.  It  proposes  to  show  the  necessity  of  a  director 
from  the  nature  of  the  spiritual  life.  All  animals  suffer 
when  they  are  called  upon  to  live  out  of  their  own  elt 
ment.  The  suffering  is  brief,  because  death  mercifully 
interferes.  Now  the  spiritual  life  is,  to  a  fallen  soul,  like 
the  life  of  a  fish  out  of  water.  First  of  all  it  is  suffering, 
and  secondly,  it  cannot  be  sustained  except  by  super- 
natural interferences.  Life  in  a  battle  with  eyes  blinded 
with  smoke  and  ears  bleeding  with  the  percussion  of  the 
artillery,  or  life  in  a  diving-bell  with  eyes  starting,  ears 
ringing,  and  pulses  galloping,  are  pictures  of  it.  Its 
character  is  supernatural  and  can  only  be  administered  to 


THE   OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR.  33  ^ 

dj  scientific  study.  Temptations  taset  it  in  invisible 
multitudes,  some  silent'  and  some  clamorous.  The  delu- 
sions that  dazzle  it  are  as  various  and  as  changeful  as  the 
colored  flashes  from  a  pigeon's  neck.  It  requires  as  many 
consolations  as  a  sick  child,  and  a  disburdened  spirit  is 
such  a  necessity  to  it  that  it  cannot  live  without  it. 
When  we  can  see  in  the  dark,  breathe  in  a  void,  and 
grasp  the  impalpable,  then  can  we  manage  ourselves  in 
an  ascetic  life;  but  not  till  then.  Godinez  in  his  Praxis 
of  Mystical  Theology  says,  "Of  a  thousand  souls  whom 
God  calls  to  perfection,  scarcely  ten  respond  to  the  call, 
and  of  a  hundred  whom  God  calls  to  contemplation, 
ninety-nine  stop  short.  Hence  I  say,  many  are  called  but 
very  few  are  chosen.  For  besides  other  great  difficulties, 
almost  insuperable  by  our  frail  nature,  and  which  surround 
this  business  of  perfection,  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  the 
failure  of  so  many  is  to  be  found  in  the  fewness  of  spiri- 
tual directors  to  guide  our  souls,  with  the  pilotage  of 
divine  grace,  over  this  unknown  sea  of  the  spiritual  life." 
A  fifth  argument  for  the  necessity  of  a  director  may  be 
drawn  from  the  nature  of  a  director's  office.  His  business 
is  not  that  of  a  pioneer.  It  is  rather  to  go  behind,  and 
to  watch  God  going  before.  He  must  keep  his  eye  fixed 
on  God,  who  is  in  the  dimness  ahead.  He  does  not  lead 
his  penitents.  The  Holy  Ghost  leads  them.  He  holds 
out  his  hands  from  behind,  as  a  mother  does  to  her  totter- 
ing child,  to  balance  his  uncertain  steps  as  he  sways  over- 
much, now  on  one  side,  now  on  another.  He  is  not  td 
have  a  way  of  his  own,  to  be  applied  to  every  one.  This 
is  what  a  novice-master  does  with  his  novices.  He  leads 
them  by  an  acknowledged  tradition,  and  animates  them 
With  the  definite  fixed  spirit  of  the  order,  and  models 


.  ft5  THE   OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR. 

them,  as  a  faithful  copyist,  on  their  sainted  Founder 
But  this  is  not  at  all  the  function  of  a  spiritual  director 
He  only  knows  that  we  are  in  the  way  which  is  right  for 
us  when  he  sees  God  in  front.  Then  he  keeps  us  super- 
stitiously  in  the  Blessed  Foot-prints  left  behind.  He 
looks  after  our  advance,  and  when  he  sees  God  increasing 
the  distance  between  Himself  and  the  soul,  he  spurs  on 
the  latter,  discreetly  and  gently,  yet  firmly  and  uninter- 
ruptedly. He  gains  as  much  light  from  prayer,  as  from 
his  knowledge  of  character  and  his  personal  observation 
of  ourselves.  His  oflBce  is  very  supernatural,  but  it  is 
very  natural  also;  and  he  will  not  direct  us  well  if  he 
overshadows  the  natural  by  the  supernatural.  It  would 
be  a  safer  mistake  if  he  attributed  a  light  to  his  natural 
penetration  and  sagacity,  the  divination  of  his  own  genius, 
which  was  really  due  to  a  gratuitous  and  supernatural 
discernment  of  spirits,  than  if  he  took  that  for  superna- 
tural which  was  really  natural.  It  is  a  perilous  thing  to 
make  a  superstition  of  direction.  Hence  a  director  would 
rather  say  supernatural  things  in  a  natural  way,  than  emit 
oracles,  observe  odd  intervals  of  silence,  say  pompous  ob- 
scure words,  or  talk  grandiloquently  about  God  having 
put  things  into  his  mind.  To  such  an  one  it  is  almost 
strange  that  his  guardian  angel  does  not  impatiently  break 
Bilence  and  say,  "All  things  are  God's  gifts  :  go  to,  simple- 
ton !  and  help  your  neighbor  to  the  best  of  your  abilities 
with  a  good-humored  diligence,  and  neither  make  so  much 
of  it,  nor  throw  a  mystery  around  it."  Yes,  above  all, 
let  us  have  no  mysteries  in  direction. 

Our  director  must  also  look  to  his  own  purity  of  con- 
science and  disinterestedness  of  conduct,  so  as  to  be  open 
to  receive  supernatural  lights  and  helps  when  God  chooses 


THE   OFFICE    OF    SPIRITUAL    DIRECTOR.  337 

He  will  not  talk  too  much  to  us,  nor  care  if  he  be  a  down- 
right trial  to  us  by  his  silence.  God's  past  work  in  each 
will  be  the  exemplar  of  his  own  work  for  that  soul.  He 
will  found  all  he  does  and  all  he  endeavors  in  the  evi- 
dences of  God's  past  grace.  How  can  such  an  office  as  this 
be  a  mere  ornament  or  accessary  ?  Must  it  not  be  at  least 
an  integral  part  of  any  system,  of  which  it  is  a  part  at  all  ? 

But  sixthly,  a  necessity  must  be  a  very  real  necessity, 
if  it  is  universal.  Now  what  class  of  persons  trying  to 
be  good  does  not  stand  in  need  of  a  director  ?  Poor  fel- 
lows who  are  trying  to  extricate  themselves  out  of  habits 
of  sin,  who  have  everything  to  learn,  everything  to  begin, 
who  have  no  arms  and  yet  the  enemy  is  down  upon  them, 
with  traitors  in  their  own  souls,  yet  who  can  scarcely  dis- 
cern the  treachery  until  its  fatal  consummation  by  some 
fresh  act  of  sin,  blind  and  blundering,  weak  and  excited, 
cowardly  and  presumptuous,  deceitful  and  disappointing, 
tiresome  and  exasperating,  yet  with  a  great  thick  mantle 
of  God's  dearest  love  and  glorious  converting  grace  thrown 
all  over  them, — do  they  not  need  a  spiritual  father  ?  and 
who  is  the  man  who  would  not  be  a  father  to  them,  and 
die  for  their  grand  immortal  souls,  if  he  might,  and  if 
our  Lord  had  not  already  taken  all  that  luxury  for  Him- 
self and  left  us  scarce  a  share  ? 

Are  beginners  in  a  perfect  life  in  less  need  ?  See  what 
difficult  work  they  have  to  do,  and  such  utter  inexperience 
in  the  doing  of  it.  No  man  can  learn  a  trade  without  an 
apprenticeship.  And  this  is  such  a  trade  !  Discourage- 
ment would  be  the  ruin  of  them,  and  yet  none  are  so 
liable  to  it,  and  none  also  have  so  much  which  might  rea. 
sonably  discourage  them.  There  they  are,  among  the 
ruins  of  themselves.  All  around  them  are  strewn  broken 
29  w 


888  THE  OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR 

resolutions,  vows  grown  cold,  distracted  prayers,  eccentric 
scruples,  weak-minded  enthusiasms,  slovenly  sacraments, 
plans  that  have  suffocated  each  other  for  want  of  room, 
and  all  the  inexpressible  variety  of  tarnished  tawdry 
thoughts  and  things  and  aspirations,  scattered  about  like 
the  finery  of  a  burnt  playJiouse  in  the  muddy  street. 
And  here  is  the  devil  marching  down  upon  them,  and 
they  must  have  all  in  order  in  a  trice,  and  fight  for  their 
lives;  for  it  is  no  other  kind  of  fight  with  them  just  now. 

The  need  of  the  advanced  is  hardly  less.  They  are 
just  entering  on  more  supernatural  ways.  They  are 
crossing  the  frontiers  into  a  jealous  empire.  Are  their 
passports  in  order?  Have  they  nothing  contraband  in 
their  luggage  ?  They  should  be  advised  to  travel  only 
with  light  baggage.  How  the  difficulties  multiply !  They 
cannot  speak  the  language,  nor  catch  the  manners  of  the 
people.  They  are  always  in  scrapes,  and  do  not  know 
what  is  wholesome  to  eat.  They  give  offence,  and  they 
take  offence,  where  none  was  intended  on  either  side. 
They  may  get  used  to  it  all  in  time.  Meanwhile,  their 
delusions  become  at  once  more  numerous,  more  secret, 
more  contradictory,  and  more  intricate.  The  devil  dis- 
plays greater  ability  than  before,  and  the  human  spirit  has 
arisen,  crowned  himself  king,  and  commenced  an  usurpa- 
tion which,  all  things  considered,  bids  fair  to  last.  The 
exercise  of  humility  becomes  more  needful  at  every  step, 
and  it  seems  as  if  nothing  but  a  director  could  supply  a 
healthy,  continuous,  and  refreshing  exercise  of  that  invi- 
gorating grace. 

As  to  the  perfect,  I  know  nothing  about  them.  But  1 
see  men  as  trees  walking,  and  they  seem  to  reel  to  and 
6ro,  as  if  divine  love  had  intoxicated  their  human  frailty. 


THE  OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL  DIRECTOR.  339 

They  seem  always  at  cross  purposes  with  others,  and  often 
m  plump  contradiction  to  themselves.  Occasionally,  they 
appear  not  quite  to  know  which  road  to  take,  or  what  to 
do.  At  other  times  they  look  stolid  and  unmeaning,  and 
lifeless  as  the  glistening  caverns  in  the  moon.  Then  again 
I  see  the  air  filled  with  balloons,  and  men  in  them  taking 
every  kind  of  indiscreet  liberty.  They  get  out  and  walk 
upon  the  clouds,  or  put  on  a  pair  of  wings,  and  fly 
through  sunset,  or  shoot  up  like  a  rocket,  and  dissolve  iD 
spangles,  or  balance  themselves  on  a  star,  or  hide  them- 
selves in  the  Milky  Way,  or  sail  in  opposite  directions,  as 
if  each  soul  had  a  wind  at  its  will.  Not  unfrequently  I 
see  them  come  down  to  the  earth,  in  the  poorest  para- 
chutes, or  without  them,  with  appalling  velocity;  and 
though  I  have  no  notion  what  their  other  movements  up 
in  the  siderial  space  may  mean,  I  feel  satisfied  that  this 
parachute  work  is  extremely  dangerous,  and  unexception- 
ably  wrong.  How  their  director  is  to  reach  such  people, 
I  cannot  tell,  but  I  am  sure  they  need  one ;  and  it  is  not 
every  one  who,  like  Catherine  of  Genoa,  and  Claudia  of 
the  Angels,  has  the  Holy  Ghost  for  sole  director.  I  sus- 
pect some  of  the  parachute  souls  dreamed  He  was  direct- 
ing them,  and  were  fatally  mistaken. 

May  I  not  from  these  six  considerations  legitimately 
infer  the  necessity  of  a  spiritual  director  ? 

Now  for  the  choice  of  him  :  this  is  my  fourth  point. 
There  are  various  kinds  of  directors.  One  writer  divides 
them  into  human,  spiritual,  and  divine.  He  calls  a 
human  director  one  who  goes  according  to  the  spirit  of 
the  world,  and  the  maxims  of  human  prudence.  A  soul 
is  very  unfortunate  when  it  falls  into  such  keeping  aa 
that.     A  spiritual  director  he  defines  to  be  a  man  who 


340  THE   OFFICE   OF    SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR. 

leads  us  into  mortification  and  prayer,  but  has  not  clear  or 
consistent  views  of  spirituality ;  so  that  he  sometimes 
makes  mistakes,  though  God  for  the  most  part  blesses  his 
purity  of  intention,  and  does  not  allow  our  souls  to  suffer 
loss.  A  divine  director  is  a  wholly  supernatural  man, 
who  lives  always  in  a  flood  of  light,  and  guides  us  as  if 
he  read  our  hearts,  and  prophesied  our  future.  Then 
directors  have  very  various  gifts.  Some  have  a  benediction 
for  beginners,  others  for  the  more  advanced,  others  for  the 
perfect.  Some  are  quite  wonderful  in  their  management 
of  newly-converted  persons.  Some  have  a  peculiar  apti- 
tude for  educated  and  refined  people,  who  make  sad  blun- 
ders with  the  poor.  Some  revel  in  cases  of  vocation, 
while  others  are  not  at  all  at  home  in  them.  Some  have 
the  magnificent  grace  of  making  the  laboring  poor  interior, 
and  supernaturalizing  poverty  and  sufferings.  Some  are 
expert  at  scruples,  others  with  interior  trials.  Some  seem 
inevitably,  with  the  holiest  intentions  and  purest  science, 
to  involve  their  penitents  in  fancies  and  delusions,  making 
them  sentimental  and  unreal ;  while  others  have  the  gift 
of  disenchanting  the  deluded,  and  of  making  their  peni- 
tents at  once  spiritual,  and  yet  natural  common-sense 
persons.  Hardly  any  one  is  a  good  director  for  all,  and 
not  often  for  one  person  all  his  life  long.  This  must  be 
borne  in  mind,  because  it  has  so  much  to  do  both  with 
the  choice  and  change  of  directors. 

As  to  the  choice  of  a  director,  what  has  been  just  said 
shows  that  we  must  be  by  no  means  precipitate.  It  is 
one  of  the  most  serious  questions  of  our  life,  and  the  evil 
of  delay  is  nothing  to  the  mischief  of  precipitation.  It 
must  be  the  subject  of  long  and  fervent  prayer,  not  with 
the  foolish  expectation  of  any  miraculous  token  of  God's 


THE   OFFICE    3F   SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR.  341 

will  at  the  last,  but  to  get  the  grace  to  choose  with  dis- 
cernment, in  faith,  and  without  human  respect.  We 
must  ask  the  special  intercession  of  St.  Joseph,  the  patron 
of  interior  souls.  Whenever  a  real  attraction  to  a  devout 
life  becomes  manifest  in  our  souls,  and  is  more  than  a 
transient  caprice  of  fervor,  then  is  the  time  when  God  ia 
calling  us  to  choose  a  director,  if  we  have  not  already  got 
one.  We  must  look  around  us,  see  if  we  have  the  inward 
signs  I  mentioned  earlier  on,  and  then  carefully  separate 
all  natural  feelings  from  the  choice.  We  must  let  it  be 
either  the  deliberate  selection  of  a  prayerful  and  satisfied 
mind;  which  I  like  best,  or  the  result  of  supernatural 
attractions,  which  I  like  least,  because  it  is  less  under  the 
control  of  cool  resolve  and  sober  calculation. 

It  seems  singular  to  couple  the  change  of  a  director 
with  the  choice ;  yet  this  must  be  my  fifth  point.  On 
the  whole,  and  speaking  quite  generally,  the  change  of 
director  is  an  evil.  Yet  we  may  err  in  four  ways ;  either 
by  changing  too  soon,  or  by  changing  at  all,  or  by  chang- 
ing too  late,  or  by  never  changing.  There  is  nothing 
more  perplexing  than  the  distinguishing  the  right  times 
from  the  wrong  in  this  matter.  The  only  thing  to  be 
said  is  that  the  change  of  our  director  is  so  grave  a  step 
and  fraught  with  so  many  consequences,  that  God  hardly 
ever  brings  the  difficulty  to  our  doors  without  giving  us 
a  more  than  common  light  along  with  it.  If  we  have 
chosen  without  deliberation,  we  may  have  the  less  scruple 
in  changing.  When  we  find  we  do  not  advance,  and  are 
not  conscious  to  ourselves  of  any  abatement  in  our  earnest 
desire  to  advance,  and  we  think  we  perceive  some  special 
hindrance  in  the  method  of  our  direction,  then  we  may 
at  least  take  other  advice,  and  entertain  the  question  of 
29* 


842  THE   OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL  DIRECTOR. 

a  change.  Perhaps  it  will  come  to  nothing.  But  whik 
he  would  be  a  very  indiscreet  adviser  who  should  tell  U9 
to  make  light  of  such  a  change,  I  do  not  know  that  I  am 
not  more  afraid  of  some  who  represent  it  as  the  hugest 
evil  of  the  spiritual  life,  the  mother  of  delusions,  and 
tantamount  to  final  perdition.  I  suspect  that  so  far  is  it 
from  being  desirable  that  we  should  stick  so  scrupulously 
to  our  director  (I  speak  diffidently),  that  when  we  have 
lost  our  liberty  and  ease  with  him,  he  has  lost  his  grace 
for  us ;  and  that  without  fault  on  either  side.  Spiritual 
direction  must  be  free  as  air,  and  fresh  as  the  morning 
sun.  Neither  temptation  nor  scruple,  neither  mortifica- 
tion nor  obedience,  must  be  able  to  infuse  into  it  one 
element  of  bondage.  The  moment  they  do,  let  us  break 
the  direction,  and  take  the  consequence.  For  the  end 
of  spiritual  direction  in  all  stages  of  the  interior  and 
mystical  life  is  one  and  single  and  invariable,  and  it  is 
liberty  of  spirit.  The  opposite  doctrine  does  not  belong 
to  the  wisdom  of  direction,  but  to  the  superstition  of 
direction. 

This  thought  brings  me  to  my  sixth  point,  which  is 
the  true  catholic  idea  of  our  intercourse  with  our  director. 
The  first  characteristic  of  this  intercourse  must  obviously 
be  openness.  Our  sins  and  imperfections,  the  working 
of  our  passions,  our  inward  disorderly  inclinations,  our 
temptations  and  the  secret  suggestions  of  evil  which  haunt 
us,  the  style  of  architecture  of  our  castles  in  the  air,  our 
good  works,  penances,  devotions,  lights,  and  inspirations, 
must  all  be  open  to  him,  not  with  superstitious  minute- 
ness, which  degenerates  into  frivolity,  but  to  such  a  degree 
as  will  enable  him  to  be  a  fair  judge  of  our  interior  con- 
dition     We  must  also  be  obedient  as  well  as  open.    We 


THE    OFFICE    OF    SPIRITUAL    DIRECTOR.  343 

have  chosen  him  for  his  spiritual  doctrine,  whereby  he 
knows  the  ways  of  God,  the  tempter,  and  the  human 
spirit ;  for  his  holiness,  whereby  he  is  zealous  to  advance 
those  whom  he  directs;  for  his  experience,  whereby  he 
gains  a  readiness  in  applying  principles  to  practice ;  and 
for  his  aptitude  at  direction,  natural,  supernatural,  or 
both  combined.  Hence  we  must  see  God  in  him  :  for 
this  is  the  meaning  of  obedience.  We  must  submit  our 
judgment  to  him ;  for  his  science  is  his  primary  qualifi- 
cation, St.  Theresa  says  our  director  should  be  learned 
and  devout;  but  that  if  we  cannot  find  both  in  one  man, 
it  is  better  to  have  the  learning  without  the  devotion, 
than  the  devotion  without  the  learning.  And  of  all  the 
Saint's  wise  words,  and  they  are  innumerable,  she  nevei 
uttered  one  that  was  more  like  herself  than  that. 

Unhappily  this  obedience  to  our  director  is  a  stumbling- 
block  to  many  of  us.  I  cannot  think  it  would  be  so,  if 
we  had  a  clear  idea  of  it,  or  which  is  the  same  thing,  an 
unexaggerated  idea  of  it.  What  shall  I  say  to  clear  your 
thoughts  without  lowering  them  ?  In  the  first  place  a 
spiritual  director  is  not  a  monastic  superior.  Our  obe- 
dience to  the  last  must  be  minute,  to  the  first  general.  The 
superior's  jurisdiction  is  universal,  the  director's  only 
where  we  invite  it,  or  he  asks  it  and  we  accord  it.  The 
superior  commands  us  unconsulted,  the  director's  com- 
mands arise  out  of  our  own  questions.  Nigronius  said 
he  never  augured  well  of  a  man  who  made  his  director 
take  the  initiative  in  spiritual  direction.  The  superior 
turns  into  precept  matters  of  supererogation,  a  director 
must  have  forgotten  himself  if  he  attempts  anything  of 
the  kind.     If  we  disobey  a  superior,  we  sin;  it  would 


344  THE   OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR. 

require  very  peculiar  and  unusual  circumstances  to  maka 
disobedience  to  our  director  any  sin  at  all. 

Now,  the  wrong  use  of  a  right  thing  is  always  bad. 
But  the  confounding  of  a  spiritual  director  with  a  religious 
superior  is  fraught  with  specially  pernicious  consequences 
to  our  souls.  If  we  are  living  in  the  world,  and  aiming 
at  perfection  amid  the  freedom  of  its  distractions  and  pur- 
suits, our  undue  subordination  to  our  director  is  out  of 
keeping  with  the  rest  of  our  life.  It  is  a  discord.  It  is 
a  foreign  element,  which  will  cause  either  corruption  or 
explosion,  according  to  our  temperament.  It  unmans  us ; 
and  what  a  host  of  evils  there  are  in  that  one  word ! 
Moreover,  it  plays  the  game  of  some  one  or  other  of  the 
many  forms  of  spiritual  idleness,  and  secretly  nourishes 
our  self-love.  We  like  to  think  we  are  obedient,  and  to 
feel  that  we  are  being  governed.  It  is  agreeable  to  us  to 
live  in  the  bustle  of  a  perpetual  spiritual  administration. 
We  hold  endless  cabinet  councils,  and  grow  pompous  and 
absurd,  uneasy,  mysterious,  and  conceited.  We  fancy 
ourselves  great  people.  We  magnify  our  tiny  experiences. 
At  last  we  grow  soft,  effeminate,  sentimental,  feverish,  and 
languid.  In  a  great  measure  it  does  away  with  the 
seriousness  of  our  relations  with  God,  and  leads  us 
unawares  into  a  kind  of  irreverence.  We  throw  things 
upon  our  director  which  we  have  no  power  to  throw  upon 
any  one  but  God.  We  lose  the  sense  of  God's  imme- 
diateness,  which  is  the  secret  of  false  spirituality,  and 
ends  in  moral  helplessness. 

It  is  a  monstrous  thing  to  say ;  but  it  is  unhappily  no 
uncommon  sight  to  see  a  soul  made  for  high  things  and 
now  gone  all  astray,  simply  because  a  false  notion  of  the 
kind  of  obedience  due  to  its  director  led  it  to  surrender 


THE   OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL  DIRECTOR.  345 

itself  indolently  to  an  idea  of  safety,  as  if  it  had  trans- 
ferred its  conscience.  We  cannot  get  rid  of  our  respon- 
sibility. In  point  of  fact,  it  is  physically  as  well  as 
morally  impossible  to  put  our  director  into  the  position  of 
a  monastic  superior,  so  as  to  make  the  famous  words  of 
the  saints  about  blind  obedience  as  true  of  the  one  office 
as  the  other.  Let  us  ponder  the  words  of  St.  Theresa. 
u  My  directors  told  me  that  what  was  a  venial  sin  was 
no  sin  at  all,  and  that  what  was  mortal  was  only  venial. 
This  did  me  so  much  mischief  that  I  do  not  think  it 
superfluous  to  mention  it  here  as  a  caution  to  others.  For 
before  God,  as  I  plainly  see,  I  was  not  excused  by  this. 
It  is  enough  that  a  thing  is  not  good,  that  we  should  ab- 
stain from  it;  and  I  believe  that  God  on  account  of  my 
sins  permitted  my  directors  to  be  deluded  and  then  to 
delude  me,  and  then  that  I  should  delude  many  others, 
by  telling  them  what  my  directors  told  me.  I  was  in 
this  blindness  for  seventeen  years."  Schram,  the  Bene- 
dictine, quotes  the  passage,  and  adds,  "  Tremenda,  theolo- 
gia  de  ignorantiis  sepe  vincilibus."  Yet  it  is,  as  all  truth 
is,  theology  as  salutary  as  it  is  tremendous.* 

Furthermore,  as  it  must  be  the  care  of  our  director  to 
watch  and  be  slow,  and  thus  not  to  interfere  with  the 
work  of  God  in  our  souls,  so  also  must  it  be  our  care  not 

*  The  saint's  words  axe  worthy  of  notice.  "I  thought,"  she  says, 
"  that  I  was  not  obliged  to  more  than  to  believe  them,"  (her  direc- 
tors.) Yo  pensava  che  no  era  obligada  a  mas  de  creerlos.  Vida  cap.  5. 
This  remarkable  passage  has,  as  might  be  expected,  attracted  con- 
siderable notice.  It  has  not  only  been  commented  upon  by  Schram 
in  his  Theologia  Mystica-j  but  also  by  Arbiol,  the  Franciscan,  in  his 
Desenganos  Misticos,  lib.  iii.  cap.  9,  where  he  is  treating  of  the  de- 
lusions of  those  souls  who  appear  to  be  far  advanced  in  prayer,  and 
rery  little  advanced  in  the  practice  of  solid  virtues. 


846  THE   OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR 

to  interfere  with  that  work  by  exaggerating  our  relations 
with  our  director,  and  putting  upon  him  what  does  not 
belong  to  the  austere  simplicity  of  his  office.  We  must 
not  go  to  him  too  often,  which  is  impatience  and  loss  of 
time.  Neither  must  we  seek  any  extraordinary  interview 
with  him  without  thought  and  prayer.  We  must  be  sure 
of  what  we  are  going  to  ask,  and  that  it  is  worth  asking, 
and  real,  and  not  an  impulse,  or  a  first  thought,  or  a  wild 
idea,  or  a  conclusion  we  have  jumped  to  in  a  hurry  and  a 
heat.  We  must  really  be  serious  about  these  things ;  for 
they  touch  God.  We  must  not  prolong  our  interviews, 
nor  say  more  than  is  necessary.  Indeed  our  conversa- 
tions with  him,  at  least  in  brevity,  pertinence,  and  fore- 
thought, should  ever  have  some  analogy  with  prayer. 
The  penitents  who  talk  most  are  the  least  obedient. 
"Believe  me,"  said  M.  Lantages,  superior  of  the  Semi- 
nary of  Puy,  "it  is  not  the  long  confessions  that  are  the 
good  ones."  Neither  should  we  go  to  our  director  merely 
for  consolation )  this  is  greedy,  and  unmanly.  Spiritual 
direction  is  meant  to  elevate  people  :  yet  how  often  it  de- 
bases them  !  This  comes  of  our  not  remembering  that  it, 
like  all  things  else  in  the  direct  service  of  God,  must  be 
thoroughly  reascnable. 

It  only  remains  for  me  to  speak  of  my  seventh  point, 
the  sufferings  which  our  director  causes  us.  Our  obedi- 
ence to  him,  to  be  reasonable,  must  allow  itself  to  be 
modified  by  time/  place,  person,  circumstances,  country, 
proficiency,  character,  both  his  and  our  own,  and  com- 
panions. Yet  even  thus  it  will  be  a  source  to  us  of  many 
Bufferings.  I  need  say  the  less  about  them  here,  because 
I  have  enumerated  them  when  speaking  of  patience.  The 
mortification  of  our  judgment  is  always  painful,  but  it  in 


THE-  OFFICE    OF   SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR.  347 

pre-eminently  painful  when  it  concerns  devotional  tastes 
The  discomfort  of  faucying  ourselves  misunderstood  is  not 
slight.  His  scanty  words  are  intolerable  to  self-love. 
When  he  sees  we  lean  too  much  upon  him,  he  will  draw 
his  arm  away,  and  we  shall  falter.  He  will  leave  us 
sometimes  to  ourselves  to  teach  us  to  walk,  though  it  may 
be  at  the  risk  of  a  sinless  fall.  He  knows  we  shall  never 
be  brave  for  God,  if  we  have  not  a  certain  amount  of  in- 
dependence of  character,  even  in  spiritual  matters.  He 
will  know  how  to  combine  this  with  humility.  One  of 
his  greatest  and  most  precious  secrets  is,  how  to  keep 
intact  all  the  rights  of  lowliness,  without  letting  it  swerve 
into  poor-spiritedness  and  a  craven  spirituality. 

We  should  beware  of  driving  our  director  into  much 
speaking,  either  by  acting  on  his  human  respect  or  his 
natural  kindness,  or  wearying  him  by  importunity. 
There  is  after  all  little  to  be  said  where  growth  is  so  slow 
as  it  is  in  the  spiritual  life.  A  conversation  between  an 
oak  and  the  woodman  would  surely  soon  come  to  an  end, 
if  growth  and  development,  blight,  birds,  bees,  and  ivy, 
were  the  only  subjects  of  conversation,  and  it  was  not  al- 
lowed to  pass  into  idle  and  irrelevant  matters.  For  an 
oak  does  not  make  an  inch  a  month,  either  of  trunk  or 
twig,  and  it  could  hardly  expect  to  have  its  bark  brushed 
and  varnished,  and  picked  out  with  gold.  So  the  soul  is 
not  revolutionized  every  day.  To-day  is  yesterday's 
brother,  and  to-morrow's  also.  What  is  there  to  be  said  ? 
All  this  talking  leads  to  our  making  new  starts  in  new 
directions  after  each  palaver.  It  is  taking  up  devotions 
and  throwing  them  down  again,  like  a  child  restless  amid 
his  toys.     It  is  heaping   practices    upon   practices,  and 


848  THE   OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL   DIRECTOR. 

getting  the  fruit  out  of  none  of  them.  It  is  applying 
remedies,  and  then  applying  others  before  the  first  have 
had  time  to  take  effect.  It  is  driving  God.  It  is  play- 
ing rashly  with  the  proverbial  delusions  of  spiritual  com- 
munications. It  is  clouding  God,  and  forcing  Him  up  to 
the  surface  of  the  soul,  when  He  is  pleased  to  bury  Him- 
self in  the  depths  of  it. 

It  is  better  to  go  through  the  little  vexations  of  our 
director's  slowness  and  silence,  than  to  run  the  risk  of  all 
these  mischiefs.  And  none  of  these  sufferings  bring  any 
real  feeling  of  bondage  along  with  them.  Bondage  is  the 
only  thing  to  dread.  All  else  surely  may  be  borne  in  so 
grave  a  cause.  Why  ask  more  of  our  spiritual  than  of 
our  bodily  physician?  The  office  is  analogous,  though 
the  subject-matter  is  so  different.  And  then  see  what 
blessing  we  have  :  safety,  victory,  inward  peace,  the  merit 
of  obedience,  and  a  good  man's  prayers. 

I  have  seen  a  geranium  brought  up  from  the  cellar 
when  the  spring-time  came.  It  had  been  a  mild  winter, 
and  in  the  warm  darkness,  it  had  grown  an  unwholesome 
growth  !  It  hung  down  like  a  creeper,  with  lanky  whitish- 
yellow  shoots,  and  miserable  jaundiced  leaves.  The 
growth  had  been  abundant ;  and  it  would  not  be  true  to 
say  that  the  abundance  was  the  only  good  point  about  it; 
for  it  was  the  worst  point  of  it  all.  There  was  but  one 
course.  It  was  cut  down,  planted  out,  and  flowered  the 
latest  of  its  brethren  that  year,  and  very  poorly  after  all. 
Such  is  the  soul  that  has  been  over-directed;  and  the 
spring-time  is  eternity.  Alas !  in  that  matter  there  comes 
the  cuttiug-down,  but  there  cannot  come  the  planting  out. 
I  never  knew  or  read  of  any  one  who  had  a  director,  and 


THE  OFFICE   OF   SPIRITUAL  DIRECTOR.  349 

then  who  suffered  because  he  was  too  little  directed.  The 
souls  damaged  by  over-direction  would  fill  a  hospital  in 
any  decently  large  town. 

I  have  written  with  a  host  of  authorities  before  me : 
and  this  I  believe  to  be  in  the  main,  the  mind  of  the  most 
approved  writers  in  the  Church  on  this  most  difficult 
question.  I  have  sought  only  one  thing,  not  to  swert* 
from  their  even-handed  moderation. 


30 


350  AUIDrNG   SORROW   FOR   SIN. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

ABIDING   SORROW    FOR   SIN. 

It  is  a  very  troublesome  thought  that  so  many  persons 
have  lofty  and  sincere  aspirations  after  high  things,  and 
so  few  reach  them ;  that,  as  Godinez  says,  so  many  are 
called  to  perfection,  and  so  few  answer  to  the  call  ;  that 
so  many  begin  ardently  and  prudently,  and  yet  die  leaving 
their  tower  unbuilt;  that  so  many,  says  Arbiol,  are  con- 
versant with  mental  prayer,  yet  never  come  to  perfection. 
It  is  a  troublesome  thought,  because  it  sets  us  calculating 
the  doctriue  of  chances  about  ourselves;  and  id  less  selfish 
moods,  calculating  the  loss  of  glory  to  God,  w»4  of  power 
to  the  Church.  For  every  perfect  ascetic  is  a  veritable 
fountain  of  power  in  the  Church,  however  hidden,  un- 
known, or  mean-looking  he  may  be.  There  is  certainly 
an  analogy  between  the  waste  of  grace  in  the  spiritual 
world,  and  the  waste  of  seeds,  and  flowers,  and  fruits,  in 
the  natural  world.  Yet  there  is  poor  consolation  in  a 
oarren  analogy.  It  may  serve  for  a  book  of  evidences ; 
but  we  shall  get  little  light  out  of  it,  and  less  heat.  It 
does  not  content  us  We  must  pursue  our  troublesome 
thought  further,  until  we  get  some  wisdom  or  warning  out 
of  it. 

Now  the  universality  of  this  phenomenon,  when  re- 
flected on,  leads  us  to  suppose  that  it  has  some  common 
cause,  which  is  one  and  the  same  in  everybody.  In  the 
spiritual  life,  a  variety  of  causes  will  produce  a  similar 


ABIDING   SORROW  FOR   SIN  851 

effect.  But  here  is  a  case  which  holds  equally  among 
men  of  the  south  and  men  of  the  north,  among  born 
Catholics  and  converts,  in  all  countries  and  in  all  times, 
frustrated  vocations  to  perfection.  The  more  we  think  of 
it,  the  more  irresistible  seems  the  conclusion  that  there  ia 
one  common  cause ;  and  if  so,  how  much  it  imports  to 
discover  it !  For  a  long  time,  I  thought  it  was  the  want 
of  perseverance  in  prayer;  but  then  there  were  so  many 
instances  in  which  the  theory  broke  down.  I  must  have 
gone  against  the  whole  tradition  of  mystical  theology,  if  I 
maintained  that  mental  prayer  was  at  all  necessarily  con- 
nected with  perfection.  Nothing  grows  upon  us  so  much 
as  the  wide  distinction  between  the  habit  of  prayer  and 
the  gift  of  prayer.  We  may  find  men  who  have  not 
missed  a  meditation  for  years,  and  yet  who  seem  to  have 
no  growth  about  them  at  all ;  nor  even  any  tenderness, 
which  ought  to  be  the  infallible  product  of  persevering 
prayer,  if  the  prayer  is  right  in  other  respects.  They  are 
perhaps  critical  to  excess  in  judging  others,  or  they  are 
wanton  and  ungoverned  in  their  loquacity;  and  month 
follows  month,  and  year  year,  and  these  unbroken  prayers 
do  not  seem  to  tell  upon  either  of  these  faults.  And  can 
any  faults  be  named  more  fatal  to  piety  than  criticism 
and  loquacity?  It  is  as  if  these  men  prayed  in  some 
way  outside  their  souls,  as  if  their  prayer  were  an  adjunct 
of  their  spiritual  life,  and  not  its  heart's  blood.  These 
inoperative  meditations  and  unreforming  prayers,  are  very 
melancholy  things.  But,  having  tried  to  establish  my 
theory,  I  found  it  was  out  of  the  question  to  attribute 
these  failures  to  a  mere  want  of  perseverance  in  prayer. 

Then  I  cast  about  for  another  guilty  cause ;  and  I  took 
it  into  my  head  that  these  failures  might  be  owing  to  a 


3d2  abiding  sorrow  for  sin. 

want  of  bodily  mortification.  Why  did  I  not  rathei 
suspect  the.  absence  of  interior  mortification?  F3r  thk 
reason.  Because  bodily  mortification  seemed  so  rare,  that 
I  was  afraid  interior  mortification  was  put  forward  as  a 
means  of  evading  bodily  mortification.  There  ts  some- 
thing honest,  satisfactory,  and  intelligible  about  bodily 
mortification;  and  I  preferred  dealing  with  it.  More- 
over, I  could  not  but  see  that  bodily  mortification  almost 
always  either  brings  interior  mortification  along  with  it, 
or  makes  a  man  easily  convertible  to  it.  I  had  more  fear 
lest  the  outward  should  be  wanting  than  the  inward. 
The  style  of  the  times  obviously  warranted  this  fear.  In 
truth,  I  found  that  incalculable  mischiefs  might  be  put 
down  to  this  want  of  corporal  austerity ;  but  that  it  could 
not  be  brought  in  guilty  of  these  failures  in  perfection. 
First  there  was  the  awkward  fact,  before  observed,  that 
those  who  made  most  of  the  austerities  practised  them 
least.  For  it  is  obvious  to  put  innocently  impertinent 
questions  to  men  who  preach  strong  doctrines.  I  was 
astonished  how  little  they  did  who  talked  so  much.  This 
was  discouraging  at  the  outset  of  the  inquiry.  However, 
further  investigation  seemed  to  show  that  although  there 
could  be  no  growth  without  austerity,  the  growth  did  not 
depend  upon  the  austerity.  Men  mortified  themselves 
and  yet  seemed  to  stand  still.  Much  evil  was  hindered, 
and  much  killed.  Souls  were  kept  good,  who  might  have 
fallen  away.  But  they  did  not  seem  to  shoot  ahead. 
Austerity  purified  and  prepared,  and  went  no  further. 
This  was  expressed  by  S.  Ephrem,  when  he  quaintly  said 
of  his  holy  friend,  that  the  dirt  of  his  body  cleansed  away 
the  filth  of  his  soul.  I  must  be  understood,  however,  to 
be  speaking  of  clean  macerations.     Tn  a  word,  it  appeared 


ABIDING   SORROW   FOR   SIN.  353 

that  in  the  soul  bodily  austerity  was  medicinal  rather  than 
nutritious;  and  that  it  sometimes  made  men  irritable, 
morose,  and  hard-natured,  as  medicine  will  do.  All 
honor  to  it :  but  it  does  not  secure  by  itself  our  growth 
in  holiness. 

What  was  to  be  the  third  object  of  my  suspicions  ? 
They  were  awakened  by  perpetual  hints  and  innuendoes 
dropped  by  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  which  observation  seemed 
more  and  more  to  corroborate.  I  therefore  charged  with 
these  failures  in  perfection  that  form  of  indiscretion,  which 
consists  in  taking  too  many  things  on  ourselves,  and  so 
acting  in  an  eager,  feverish,  and  precipitate  manner, 
which  St.  Francis  calls  empressement.  The  circumstances 
of  modern  life  appeared  to  beguile  men  into  it  more  than 
ever.  Its  miserable  consequences  were  patent  on  all 
sides.  It  vitiates  all  it  touches,  and  weakens  what  is 
most  divine  in  all  our  spiritual  exercises.  It  confuses 
the  operations  of  grace,  and  turns  the  fruit  of  sacraments 
on  one  side.  Our  duties  are  all  disorderly,  untidy,  and 
ill-tempered,  because  they  rush  pell-mell  from  morning 
till  night,  treading  on  each  other's  heels,  and  turning 
round  to  reproach  each  other.  Now  let  some  men  be 
found,  who  have  no  duties  but  those  which  their  state  of 
life  renders  indispensable,  whose  day  is  roomy  and  large 
quiet,  and  old-fashioned,  everything  in  its  place,  and  all 
things  clean.  They  must  have  but  few  spiritual  exer- 
cises, and  they  must  make  much  of  those  few,  do  them 
slowly  and  punctiliously,  value  recollection,  and  have  no 
signs  of  tepidity.  Many  such  were  to  be  found,  but  on 
close  inspection  growth  in  holiness  was  anything  but  the 
invariable  rule  with  them.  Their  slow  way  of  doing 
things,  their  roominess,  so  to  call  it,  was  an  immense 
30*  x 


354  ABIDING    SORROW    FOR    SIN. 

blessing  to  them,  and  fraught  with  many  graces.  Ne^er« 
theless  they  were  for  the  most  part  a  phenomenon.  Un- 
less all  the  spiritual  books  in  the  world  have  conspired  to 
be  wrong,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  dead  level  in  piety, 
on  which  people  can  pace  up  and  down  without  eithe; 
advancing  or  going  back,  like  a  comfortable  terrace,  with- 
out a  single  inequality  in  it,  as  if  it  was  laid  down  and 
levelled  for  the  purpose  of  Office  being  said  upon  it.  All 
theory  is  positive  that  there  is  no  such  thing.  Yet  by 
some  means  these  good  men  have  contrived  to  make  it  or 
to  find  it.  Explain  it  who  will,  there  they  are  pacing  up 
and  down,  thoroughly  good,  truly  edifying,  yet  on  a  level, 
and  a  low  level  too.  I  am  not  going  out  of  my  way  to 
account  for  it.  It  overthrew  my  theory;  and  with  all 
the  good  will  in  the  world,  and  out  of  love  for  St.  Francis 
of  Sales,  to  give  precipitation  a  bad  name,  I  was  obliged 
to  return  a  verdict  of  Not  guilty,  at  least  on  the  charge 
of  causing  all  these  unhappy  failures  in  perfection.  But 
the  oftener  a  man  is  baffled  the  more  obstinate  he  groWb. 
Here  were  three  failures,  and  a  determination  to  try 
again. 

This  time  I  was  longer  at  fault  than  I  had  been  before. 
I  did  not  so  much  cast  about  for  a  theory,  as  watched  and 
waited;  and  by  slow  degrees  so  many  facts  obtruded 
themselves  upon  me  that  a  sort  of  induction  from  them 
was  unavoidable.  At  first  it  took  this  technical  shape, 
that  all  men  are  anxious  to  get  clear  of  the  Purgative 
Way  of  the  ascetic  life,  and  enter  into  the  brightness  of 
the  Illuminative  or  the  sweetness  of  the  Unitive,  and  that 
all  failures  in  perfection,  or  so  nearly  all  as  to  satisfy  the 
requirements  of  a  general  rule,  are  owing  to  this  one 
thing.     Nothing  ever  presented  itself  to  make  me  doubt 


ABIDING   SORROW    FOR   SIN.  355 

the  substantial  truth  of  this  conclusion.  But  the  Purga- 
tive Way  is  a  wide  thing,  a  very  comprehensive  term. 
Would  experience  allow  us  to  narrow  it,  without  making 
it  too  narrow  to  bear  the  superstructure  that  was  to  be 
built  upon  it  ?  The  thing  was  to  wait  for  more  facts,  so 
as  to  have  a  larger  and  safer  induction.  The  result  was 
a  persuasion,  which  I  venture  to  record  under  correction, 
that  the  common  cause  of  all  failures  in  perfection  is  the 
want  of  Abiding  Sorrow  for  Sin.  Just  as  all  worship 
breaks  down,  if  it  is  not  based  on  the  feelings  due  from 
a  creature  to  his  Creator,  just  as  all  conversions  come  to 
nothing  which  are  not  conversions  from  sin,  just  as  all 
penances  come  to  nought  which  do  not  rest  on  Christ,  just 
as  all  good  works  crumble  away  which  do  not  rest  upon 
our  Saviour,  so  in  like  manner  all  holiness  has  lost  its 
principle  of  growth  if  it  is  separated  from  abiding  sorrow 
for  sin.  For  the  principle  of  growth  is  not  love  only,  but 
forgiven  love. 

This  persuasion  was  strengthened  in  me  by  the  gradual 
observation  that  the  absence  of  abiding  sorrow  for  sin 
adequately  explained  all  the  separate  phenomena,  that 
had  induced  me  to  accuse  and  prosecute,  first  the  want  of 
perseverance  in  prayer,  then  for  the  lack  of  bodily  austeri- 
ties, and  last  of  all,  the  precipitation  of  having  too  much 
to  do.  For  this  abiding  sorrow  would  produce  the  same 
continual  feelings  of  our  own  unworthiness  and  of  our 
dependence  upon  Grod,  which  would  be  the  fruits  of  per- 
severing prayer.  It  would  engage  us  in  perpetual  warfare 
with  and  disesteem  of  self,  and  would  keep  us  in  the 
spirit  of  penance,  and  that  without  intermission,  which 
bodily  mortification  would  do  excellently  but  intermit- 
kingly.    It  would  give  us  all  the  quietness  and  gentleness 


556  ABIDING   SORROW   FOR  SIN. 

with  self,  the  sweetness  and  forbearance  with  others,  the 
patience  and  slowness  with  God,  which  we  should  gain 
from  the  absence  of  precipitation.  The  salient  features, 
therefore,  which  had  drawn  suspicion  upon  these  things, 
were  all  reunited  in  this  abiding  sorrow  for  sin. 

Meditation  on  the  mysteries  of  our  Blessed  Lord,  and 
on  our  Lady's  life,  threw  still  further  light  on  this  sup- 
position. First  of  all  there  was  this  remarkable  fact. 
Jesus  was  sinless,  by  His  own  intrinsic  sanctity,  the  un- 
utterable holiness  of  his  Divine  Person.  Mary  was  sin- 
less, by  the  gift  of  Jesus  and  the  pre-eminent  prevention 
of  His  redeeming  grace.  Yet  the  characteristic  of  the 
lives  of  both  was  that  they  practised  penance  in  an  heroic 
degree,  as  if  penance  might  be  holy  without  innocence, 
but  not  innocence  without  penance.  The  theological  ways 
of  accounting  for  the  penance  of  Jesus  and  Mary  led  to 
more  light.  It  appeared  that  their  life  of  penance  con- 
sisted in  some  measure  in  an  abiding  sorrow  from  first  to 
last.  The  first  moment  of  conception  was  the  full  use 
and  complete  energy  of  reason.  But  reason  dawned  upon 
a  wonderful,  deep,  and  fixed  sorrow.  From  that  instant 
till  the  moment  of  death  the  sorrow  abided  with  them. 
It  put  itself  in  harmony  with  every  kind  of  feeling.  It 
adapted  itself  to  all  circumstances.  It  never  darkened 
into  gloom.  It  never  melted  into  light.  It  lived  on  the 
present,  and  the  clear  view  of  the  future  was  part  of  its 
present,  and  it  never  let  go  its  hold  of  the  past.  It  was 
keen  and  distinct  in  the  soul  of  Mary,  while  she  magnified 
God  in  the  exultation  of  her  Divine  Maternity.  In  the 
ever-blessed  soul  of  Jesus  it  dwelt  amid  the  fires  of  the 
Beatific  Vision,  and  was  not  consumed.  It  was  a  beauti« 
fui  mystery  of  perennial  sorrow. 


ABIDING    SORROW   FOR    SIN.  357 

The  characteristics  of  this  sorrow  were  that  it  was  life- 
long, quiet,  supernatural,  and  a  fountain  of  love.  These 
features  of  it  are  very  much  to  be  weighed  and  observed. 
For  when  we  come  to  look  at  ourselves,  whether  it  be  the 
rare  few  who  have  preserved  their  baptismal  innocence 
and  whose  souls  are  only  charged  with  venial  sins,  or  the 
great  apostles,  unrivalled  amidst  the  saints,  confirmed  in 
grace,  and  whose  grace  was  superabundant,  or  the  mass 
of  men  whose  best  estate  is  that  of  repentant  and  return- 
ing sinners,  we  shall  see  that  no  sorrow  is  possible  to  us 
which  shall  unite  these  four  characteristics  except  the 
abiding  sorrow  for  sin.  It  is  as  much  life-long  with  us 
as  anything  can  be.  It  is  a  prominent  part  of  our  first 
turning  to  God,  and  there  is  no  height  of  holiness  in 
which  it  will  leave  us.  It  is  the  interior  representation 
of  our  guardian  angel  in  our  souls,  and  the  disposition  and 
demeanor  he  would  fain  should  be  constant  and  persever- 
ing in  us.  It  is  quiet.  Indeed,  it  rather  tranquillizes  a 
troubled  soul  than  perturbs  a  contented  one.  It  hushes 
the  noises  of  the  world,  and  rebukes  the  loquacity  of  the 
human  spirit.  It  softens  asperities,  subdues  exaggera- 
tions, and  constrains  everything  with  a  sweet  and  gracious 
spell  which  nothing  else  can  equal.  It  is  supernatural. 
For  it  has  a  natural  motive  to  feed  upon.  It  is  all  from 
God,  and  all  for  God.  It  is  forgiven  sin  for  which  we 
mourn,  and  not  sin  which  perils  self.  And  this  very  fact 
makes  it  also  a  fountain  of  love.  We  love  because  much 
has  been  forgiven,  and  we  always  remember  how  much  it 
was.  We  love  because  the  forgiveness  has  abated  fear. 
We  love  because  we  wonder  at  the  compassion  that  could 
so  visit  such  unworthiness.  We  love  because  the  softness 
of  sorrow  is  akin  to  the  filial  confidence  of  love.     Thui? 


858  ABIDING    SORROW   FOR   SIN. 

abiding  sorrow  for  sin  is  the  only  possible  parallel  in  oui 
souls  to  the  mysterious  life-long  sorrow  of  Jesus  and 
Mary;  and  the  fact  that  sorrow  clung  to  them  character- 
istically in  spite  of  their  sinlessness  seems  to  show  how 
much  of  the  secret  life  of  Christian  holiness  is  hidden  in 
its  gentle  supernatural  melancholy. 

Moreover,  it  was  impossible  not  to  perceive  that  under 
a  variety  of  names,  sorrow,  repentance,  fear,  and  the  like, 
Scripture  speaks  of  an  abiding  penance,  of  fearing  always, 
of  fearing  forgiven  sin,  of  passing  the  time  of  our  sojourn- 
ing in  fear,  of  the  sorrow  which  is  unto  life.  It  never 
contemplates  the  possibility  of  the  dispositions  of  repent- 
ance ceasing;  for  the  single  passage  of  St.  John  about 
love  casting  out  fear  is  hardly  to  be  understood  of  this 
life.  So  that  there  seems  to  be  a  precept  of  always  sor- 
rowing for  sin  analogous  to  the  precept  of  always  praying, 
and  subject  to  the  same  kind  of  difficulties  in  its  interpre- 
tation. Now  what  does  this  abiding  sorrow  of  Scripture 
mean  ?  Certainly  not  austerities ;  for  they  are  occasional 
and  intermitting.  Certainly  not  sadness,  which  is  sorrow 
with  self  in  it,  and  where  God  should  be.  Certainly  not 
human  melancholy,  which  is  either  a  consequence  of  sin, 
or  a  fruit  of  idleness,  or  a  disease  of  a  deranged  bodily 
system.  Thus  Scripture,  forming  the  last  link  in  that 
chain  of  proof,  which  led  me  to  charge  failures  in  perfec- 
tion on  the  want  of  abiding  sorrow  for  sin  as  their  single 
common  cause,  a  cause  uniting  in  all  men  with  the  other 
causes  which  affect  this  or  that  individual,  brings  me  also 
into  the  consideration  of  my  subject.  We  must  first 
ascertain  the  nature  of  this  sorrow. 

It  consists  in  an  abiding  sense  that  we  are  sinners, 
without  at  all  bringing  up  to  remembmnce  definite  and 


ABIDING   SORROW   FOR   SIN.  8(»9 

particular  sins.  On  the  contrary,  it  would  not  only  avoid 
such  a  picturing  of  sins  as  a  matter  of  prudence,  but  it 
would  be  quite  foreign  to  its  genius  to  think  of  it.  It  is 
too  much  occupied  with  God  to  do  more  than  to  fix  its 
eyes  on  self  with  a  touching,  patient,  reproachful  look, 
'ft  consists  also  in  an  undoubting  and  yet  an  unceasing 
prayer  for  pardon.  If  it  were  argumentative  it  might 
say,  that  a  sin  was  either  forgiven  or  was  not  forgiven, 
that  forgiveness  was  an  instantaneous  act,  whether  it  were 
gratuitous  or  conditional,  and  that  to  ask  forgiveness  for 
what  is  forgiven  is  to  approach  God  with  unmeaning  words. 
But  David  gives  it  a  voice,  Amplius  lava  me,  Wash  me 
more  and  more,  0  Lord ;  and  the  whole  Church  through- 
out the  world  has  adopted  his  Miserere,  and  is  continually 
upon  her  knees,  crying,  Amplius  lava  me.  0  how  the 
soul  yearns  for  that  Amplius  !  Theologians  tell  us  that 
the  fires  of  purgatory  do  not  amid  their  other  severely 
benignant  offices  burn  the  stains  of  sin  out  of  our  souls  j 
because  in  truth  there  are  no  stains  there ;  the  Precious 
Blood  obliterated  them  in  the  act  of  forgiving  them.  Still 
there  are  the  fires.  So  there  are  the  fires  of  that  Amplius 
in  the  soul.  It  is  a  thing  to  be  felt  rather  than  accounted 
for,  to  be  cherished  rather  than  defined. 

It  consists  also  in  a  dread  of  forgiven  sin,  not  so  much 
because  of  purgatory,  though  it  is  far  from  affecting  to 
be  above  these  mixed  and  lower  motives — poor  soul,  how 
should  it  venture  to  think  itself  above  anything !  —  but 
because  of  the  way  in  which  old  habits  revive,  and  the 
species  of  old  sins  haunt  the  imagination,  making  it  often, 
to  use  the  forcible  words  of  Scripture,  like  a  cage  of  un- 
clean birds.  It  dare  not  go  to  sleep  with  the  seemingly 
dead  enemy  by  its  side.     Through  the  cold  night,  and 


&0<)  ABIDING    SORROW    FOR   SIN. 

on  the  strewn  battle-field,  it  wakes  and  watches,  and  in  a 
low  voice  sings  the  triumphs  of  grace,  that  it  may  repel 
the  approaches  of  slumber.  It  consists  also  in  a  growing 
hatred  of  sin.  This  growing  hatred  is  a  different  thing 
from  the  startled  horror  of  our  conversion  to  God,  when 
He  tore  the  mask  off  its  face,  and  turned  the  fierce  full 
light  of  His  Spirit  upon  it,  exhibiting  its  loathsome 
deformity  and  preternatural  hideousness  to  our  soul  that 
trembled  under  the  idea  of  His  judgments,  while  our  flesh 
was  freezingly  pierced  with  His  sharp  chastening  fears. 
That  hour  has  passed  away.  It  was  a  baptism,  but  He 
held  us  in  His  arm  while  He  baptized  us,  and  we  did  not 
perish.  But  it  is  an  increase  of  the  spirit  of  Gethsemane 
in  our  souls,  a  communication  from  that  solitary  mystery 
beneath  the  olive  trees,  when  even  apostles  slept.  It  is 
the  Sacred  Heart  touching  our  hearts,  and  leaving  faint 
stigmata  of  His  own  life-long  sorrow  upon  them. 

It  consists  in  a  growing  sensitiveness  of  conscience  as 
to  what  is  sin.  Ineffably  bright  as  is  the  sanctity  of  God 
and  His  refulgent  glory,  to  gaze  upon  it  strengthens  our 
soul's  eye  rather  than  dazzles  it.  We  see  more  clearly 
what  is  imperfect,  unworthy,  and  dishonorable  in  actions 
We  discern  the  complication  and  mixture  of  motives  more 
distinctly.  And  entangled  in  a  confusion  of  infirmities, 
a  very  inevitability  of  imperfections,  where  self-love  can 
find  no  single  resting-place  for  the  sole  of  its  foot,  we 
grow  in  a  divine  sadness,  which  humility  and  faith  will 
not  allow  to  be  disquietude.  With  all  this,  and  in  the 
way  of  consequence,  our  personal  love  of  our  most 
blessed  Lord  increases,  and  love  of  Him  as  our  actual 
Saviour  from  sin.  It  is  our  joy  to  "  call  His  Name, 
Jesus,  because  He  saveth  His  people  from  their  sins/' 


ABIDING    SORROW   FOR   SIN.  361 

There  are  two  classes  of  persons  trying  to  serve  God  \ 
those  who  do  not  feel  this  abiding  sorrow  for  sin,  and  those 
who  do.  Or  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  the 
one  class -has  not  got  it,  and  does  not  feel  the  want  of  it, 
and  the  other  either  has  it,  or  wants  to  have  it.  Various 
causes  hinder  men  from  feeling  this  want ;  the  most  com- 
mon is  tepidity.  Lukewarmness  is  incompatible  with  this 
holy  sorrow,  and  cannot  co-exist  with  it.  But  the  charac- 
teristic of  such  men  is  the  absence  of  spiritual  growth, 
and  their  perseverance  in  the  ways  of  devotion  doubtful. 
On  the  contrary,  those  who  have  not  this  sorrow,  but  feel 
the  want  of  it,  have  this  consolation,  that  the  very  feeling 
of  the  want  is  a  sign  of  a  healthy  state,  or  at  least  of 
returning  health ;  though  it  may  be  even  with  them  that 
lukewarmness  has  brought  their  necessity  safely  home  to 
them.  Many  men  are  unhappily  without  it,  from  their 
having  suddenly  or  prematurely  taken  too  high  a  place  in 
the  spiritual  life,  left  the  purgative  way  too  rapidly, 
vitiated  their  palates  by  mystical  books,  or  undertaken 
penances  too  hard  for  them,  and  works  beyond  their  exist- 
ing grace.  If  we  insist  upon  our  souls  growing  upwards 
before  they  have  taken  root  downwards,  they  are  sure  to 
be  stunted.  Little  birds  that  try  to  fly  before  they  are 
fledged,  fall  from  the  eaves,  and  are  hurt  or  killed,  accord- 
ing to  the  height  from  which  they  fall.  The  love  of  such 
men  for  our  Blessed  Lord  is  cold  and  poor,  and  anything 
like  ardor  looks  to  them  mere  high-flown  romance,  or  a 
wordy  enthusiasm.  That  the  sorrow,  however,  is  not 
always  sensible,  is  no  proof  that  it  is  not  habitual.  Yet 
sensible  sorrow,  like  sensible  sweetness,  is  a  great  gift, 
and  to  be  moderately  desired  and  asked  of  God.  Alas ! 
we  may  often  wish  to  feel  as  we  did  when  God  first  turned 
SI 


362  ABIDING   SORROW   FOR   SIN. 

as  to  Himself.  0  that  I  was  as  in  former  days,  says 
Job.  Yet  the  question  is,  how  far  this  is  possible,  and 
if  possible,  how  far  it  would  be  well.  The  sorrow  we 
must  cultivate  is  of  another  sort. 

The  apostle  tells  us  there  are  two  kinds  of  sorrow;  one 
of  them  is  sorrow  unto  death,  the  other  a  sorrow  unto 
life.  The  sorrow  unto  death  is  more  like  self-vexation 
than  genuine  sorrow.  It  is  often  the  consequence  of  an 
exaggerated  human  respect.  It  is  a  sorrow  for  sin  which 
causes  fresh  sins,  by  filling  us  full  of  irritability  both  to- 
wards others  and  ourselves.  It  is  without  any  trust  in 
God,  without  any  realization  of  grace,  and  leads  to  no 
amendment  of  life.  This  is  the  sorrow  unto  death  in  its 
earlier  stages,  during  which  it  may  occasionally  mingle 
unperceived  with  the  dispositions  of  excellent  and  interior 
persons.  Its  later  stages  are  the  preparations  of  despair; 
and  its  consequence,  worked  logically  out,  is  final  impeni- 
tence, and  an  unfavorable  doom. 

The  sorrow  which  is  unto  life  is  of  two  kinds.  The 
first  is  that  which  works  conversion.  It  is  impetuous, 
outwardly  demonstrative,  full  of  self-revenge,  greedy  of 
mortification,  impatient  with  too  easy  forgiveness,  and 
eaten  up  with  a  desire  to  suffer,  which  is  not  as  yet  really 
rooted  in  the  soul,  an  appetite  for  pain  which  is  more  a 
nervous  craving  than  a  gracious  hunger  after  justice,  so 
that  it  must  not  be  satisfied.  This  sorrow  is  naturally 
transient;  for  it  has  an  end  to  accomplish,  and  then  it 
goes. 

The  other  is  the  sorrow  which  we  should  wish  to  retain 
with  us  always.  As  I  have  said,  it  is  life-long,  quiet, 
supernatural,  and  a  fountain  of  love.  Hence  it  is  affec- 
tionate, and  not  reproachful.    It  knows  how  to  deal  gently 


ABIDING    SORROW    FOR   SIN.  362 

with  rfelf,  without  dealing  indulgently.  It  :s  humble,  and 
neve/  downcast  at  falls.  Strange  to  say,  its  fear  of  hell 
is  infrequent,  faint,  and  intermitting ;  yet  it  is  never,  not 
for  a  moment  nor  even  in  extasy,  without  a  solemn,  reve- 
rential fear  of  God's  inscrutable  judgments.  The  celestial 
raptures  of  our  Lord's  Sacred  Humanity  interrupted  not 
for  one  moment  the  reverential  fear  with  which  His  Body 
and  Soul  were  penetrated.  It  is  possible  for  the  fear  of 
hell  to  be  so  strong  and  so  lasting,  as  to  be  a  spiritual 
disease.  Moreover,  this  abiding  sorrow  is  devotional.  It 
inclines  to  prayer,  brings  pleasure  in  prayer,  and  though 
a  sorrow,  is  itself  a  sweetness.  It  is  very  confident,  and 
its  confidence  rests  solely  upon  God.  It  lives  by  the 
fountains  of  the  Saviour's  Blood,  weeps  silent  tears  like 
one  who  is  continually  hearing  good  news,  and  is  hopeful. 
This  affectionate  sorrow  delivers  us  from  many  spiritual 
dangers.  It  throws  a  tenderness  into  our  whole  character, 
and  makes  us  deep  and  pliant.  It  brings  with  it  the 
unction  of  that  special  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  which  is 
named  "  piety.' '  It  hinders  our  getting  into  a  formal 
way  both  of  doing  our  ordinary  actions  and  of  going 
through  our  accustomed  devotions.  The  sap  subsides  in 
the  trees  as  the  cold  weather  comes,  and  the  chilly  nights 
quicken  its  descent.  So  is  the  gradual  declension  of 
fervor  in  our  souls.  But  this  sorrow  saves  us  from  it;  it 
is  the  sap  of  our  spiritual  lives,  whose  character  it  is  to 
be  perennial,  and  its  foliage  evergreen.  The  leaves  may 
be  cold-crumpled  and  frost-bitten;  but  the  tree  is  still 
green.  It  also  saves  us  from  making  light  of  venial  sins, 
and  is  always  stopping,  even  when  we  know  it  not,  little 
untruths,  teasing  jealousies,  wounded  conceits,  and  sins 
of  the  tongue.     For  it   is   the    sorrow  which  was    the 


864  ABIDING   SORROW   FOR   SIN. 

Lord's  mantle.  We  are  holding  the  sacred  fringe,  and 
virtue  goes  out  of  Him  into  us,  and  the  issue  of  the 
bleeding  soul  is  stayed. 

The  fruits  which  it  produces  in  us  are  of  equal  import- 
ance with  the  dangers  from  which  it  preserves  us.  It 
makes  us  charitable  towards  the  falls  of  others,  and  this 
reacts  upon  ourselves  in  the  way  of  an  increase  of 
humility.  It  involves  a  continual  renewal  of  our  good 
resolutions,  additional  reality  and  fortitude  in  our  wish  to 
do  more  for  God,  and  an  increasing  power  of  perseverance, 
with  more  stability  and  less  effort.  It  blessedly  dimin- 
ishes our  taste  for  the  world  and  its  pleasures.  It  flings 
the  charm  of  heaven  around  us,  and  disenchants  all  other 
spells.  It  leads  to  a  more  fruitful,  because  a  more  reve- 
rent, humble  and  hungry  use  of  the  Sacraments ;  and  no 
grace  that  comes  to  us  is  wasted  while  this  sorrow  pos- 
sesses our  souls.  It  grinds  all  grist  in  its  mill.  There 
is  nothing  which  makes  our  endurance  of  crosses  more 
patient  or  more  graceful :  nothing  which  gives  us  so  calm 
and  fertile  a  pertinacity  in  works  of  mercy  to  others.  We 
are  always  flooded  with  inward  tenderness,  so  that  there 
is  not  an  ache  or  pain  in  one  of  Christ's  members 
which  does  not  awake  our  sympathy,  and  find  its  account 
in  our  sensibility.  Devotion  to  our  Lord's  Passion  is 
meant  for  the  daily  bread  of  Christian  thought,  and  it 
keeps  fresh  and  new  in  this  sorrow  as  in  a  genial  atmos- 
phere. Our  perceptions  of  the  invisible  world  become 
finer  and  keener;  we  are  more  liable  to  be  excited  by 
spiritual  interests,  and  more  alive  to  the  soul's  wants  and 
dangers;  and  there  is  about  us  a  liveliness  of  thanks- 
giving, which  only  shows  the  copiousness  of  the  hidden 
joy  in  this  apparent  sorrow.     It  is  as  though  the  happy 


ABIDING   SORROW   FOR  SIN  365 

resurrection  of  the  flesh  were  partially  anticipated.  The 
coils  and  drags  fall  off  our  soul,  and  we  have  a  new 
facility  and  promptitude  for  everything  which  has  to  do 
with  God. 

But  how  are  we  to  get,  or  if  gotten  how  keep,  this 
dear  and  precious  sorrow  ?  Need  I  say  that  we  must 
make  it  a  subject  of  special  prayer  ?  We  must  not  give 
way  to  disgusts  with  common  devotions,  tame  books, 
ordinary  practices,  and  common-place  direction.  We  must 
avoid  changing  our  director  hastily,  and  prepare  carefully 
and  leisurely  for  sacraments  and  make  much  of  them.  We 
must  have  a  great  devotion  for  the  conversion  of  sinners, 
and  be  very  simple  in  the  accusation  of  ourselves  in  the 
confessional.  We  must  be  jealous  of  anything  which 
hinders  our  constant  growth  in  personal  love  of  Jesus. 
Whatever  else  stops  for  awhile,  often  inculpably,  this  love 
can  never  stop.  There  is  no  end  to  it.  It  partakes  of 
God's  infinity.  Nothing  is  above  it  in  kind,  nothing  co- 
equal with  it  in  degree.  We  must  never  consciously  seek 
consolation  as  a  primary  object  either  in  sermons,  direc- 
tion, devotion,  voluntary  bodily  inflictions,  or  spiritual 
conferences.  We  must  not  seek  to  be  consoled  in  a  sor- 
row which  is  our  treasure,  and  which  we  are  fain  should 
abide  with  us  not  only  until  the  day  of  this  world  is  far 
spent,  but  until  the  new  eternal  day  has  veritably  dawned. 
And  if  we  be  in  the  illuminative,  or  even  in  the  unitive 
way,  never  let  us  part  company  altogether  with  medita- 
tion on  the  Four  Last  Things. 

But  particularly  we  must  be  upon  our  guard  against 

iwo  foolish  mistakes,  which  betray  an  ignorance  of  the 

first  principles  of  the  interior  life,  and  which  nevertheless 

are  not  uncommon.     The  first  mistake  is  the   putting 

31* 


366  ABIDING   SORROW   FOR   SIN. 

lightly  away  of  movements  of  remorse  and  inward  up 
braidings,  as  if  they  were  mere  scruples.  Directors,  in 
a  hurry  to  get  rid  of  their  penitents,  or  anxious  to  keep 
them  calm  at  all  costs,  often  cast  them  into  this  delusion. 
But  it  is  a  serious  misfortune  as  well  as  a  grave  mistake. 
It  may  be  some  old  root  of  bitterness  which  is  causing 
the  twinge,  or  some  secret  reserve  with  God  which  has 
found  voice  and  is  upbraiding  us.  What  shall  we  lose  if 
we  leave  these  things  still  in  us  ?  Or  it  may  be  that  our 
Lord  is  doing  to  us  something  like  what  we  read  of 
various  saints,  that  He  is  squeezing  the  last  drops  of  bad 
blood  out  of  our  hearts :  and  are  we  to  meddle  and  un- 
clasp the  kind  firmness  of  his  fingers  from  the  aching 
place,  when  if  we  knew  our  own  good  fortune  we  should 
see  that  that  ache  is  worth  kingdoms  to  us  ?  A  cloud  is 
always  a  cloud ;  but  it  is  wisdom  to  know  when  the  cloud 
that  is  overshadowing  us  is  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  other  mistake,  is  thinking  it  uncatholic  to  take 
serious  and  religious  views  of  things.  Converts  are  very 
liable  to  this  from  the  ordinary  laws  of  reaction  and 
recoil.  So  also  are  priests,  seminarists,  and  religious,  as 
thinking  seriousness  professional.  Levity  will  not  make 
us  happy,  and  I  never  read  the  life  of  a  saint  who  thought 
it  fine  to  speak  lightly,  or  who  was  given  to  do  so. 
They  said  little,  and  what  they  said  was  invariably  grave. 
I  believe  it  was  their  gravity  that  made  them  cheerful. 
There  is  something  under-graduate  about  this  levity.  It 
ia  partly  the  conceit,  and  partly  the  vulgarity  of  the 
spiritual  life. 

I  am  confident  no  vocation  to  perfection  will  be  frus- 
trated by  a  soul  in  which  there  is  this  abiding  sorrow  for 
sin.  It  is  the  quintessence  of  devotion  to  the  Sacked 
Heart,  and  it  is  there  that  we  must  seek  it. 


THE  RIGHT    VIEW   OF   OUR   FAULTS.  367 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE   RIGHT   VIEW   OF   OUR   FAULTS. 

The  sweetest  of  all  the  sweet  doctrines  which  St. 
Francis  of  Sales  was  inspired  to  teach  us,  was  that  which 
regarded,  the  right  view  of  our  own  faults.  The  conside- 
ration of  it  falls  very  naturally  into  this  place.  On  the 
one  hand,  we  have  got  clear  views  of  temptations  and  of 
scruples,  and  on  the  other,  a  perception  of  the  necessity 
of  an  abiding  sorrow  for  sin.  That  sorrow,  as  we  now 
understand  it,  can  be  no  source  of  scruples,  but  a  right 
view  of  our  own  faults  must  fall  in  with  and  be  a  part 
of  it.  Unfortunately  our  faults  form  a  great  portion  of 
ourselves,  and  it  is  plain  that  the  management  of  them 
can  be  no  slight  affair  in  the  spiritual  life,  and  that  our 
management  of  them  depends  very  much  upon  the  view 
we  take  of  them. 

Indeed,  much  of  life  depends  upon  taking  right  views 
of  things.  Time  is  saved.  Mistakes  are  hindered. 
Sometimes  we  chance  upon  a  short  road  to  heaven.  Not 
that  the  short  roads  are  always  the  easiest.  Strictly 
speaking,  none  are  short  and  none  are  easy ;  but  they 
may  be  comparatively  so  among  themselves,  and  all  are 
full  of  pleasantness  and  peace.  What  do  we  most  abound 
in  ?  Certainly,  in  faults.  Perhaps  a  right  view  of  them 
may  be  a  short  read  to  heaven.  It  will  at  all  events, 
help  us  to  make  a  road  of  what  looks  like  a  series  of 
barriers. 


S68  THE  RIGHT   VIEW   OF   OUR   FAULTS. 

If  a  good  person  were  asked  to  give  an  account  of 
himself,  it  would  probably  be  somewhat  after  the  follow- 
ing fashion : 

I  am  constantly  doing  things  which  are  wrong  in  them- 
selves.  It  is  not  that  I  do  them  on  purpose,  or  with  fore- 
thought. I  hope  I  do  not  commit  any  venial  sin  deliber- 
ately. It  is  the  great  object  of  my  life,  next  to  loving 
God,  to  avoid  that.  Yet  neither  on  the  other  hand  can  I 
say  that  my  falls  are  altogether  surprises.  They  seem  so 
at  the  time,  but  not  when  I  come  to  look  back  upon  them. 
The  sense  of  guilt  grows  upon  me  in  the  retrospect,  rather 
than  reproaches  me  at  the  moment.  And,  worst  of  all,  I 
see  no  visible  improvement  in  myself  in  this  matter. 
Again,  when  I  do  things  which  are  outwardly  right,  nay, 
which  are  generous,  and  involve  some  amount  of  sacrifice, 
I  continually  detect  some  low  motive  in  them.  I  cannot 
6hake  off  human  respect.  Self-love  seems  inseparable  even 
from  my  very  thoughts,  my  very  sacrifices.  It  is  not  as 
if  this  happened  now  and  then,  but  it  is  going  on  all  day. 
It  runs  parallel  with  the  stream  of  life.  I  believe  I  have 
never  done  a  good  work  in  my  life.  A  spoiled  good 
work  is  my  highest  point. 

But  in  prayer  I  am  quite  a  different  person.  I  seem 
to  have  entered  another  world.  I  am  at  my  ease  and  at 
large.  The  aspirations  of  the  saints  appear  to  be  mine. 
Desires  of  suffering,  an  appetite  for  calumny,  tremendous 
penances,  ardent  resolutions,  heroic  deeds,  all  rush  upon 
me  at  once,  and  express  precisely  what  I  am  feeling  most 
gtrongly  in  my  interior  life.  Bold  words,  from  which  at 
other  times  I  should  have  shrunk  with  reverence,  fill  my 
prayers.  I  plead  the  right  of  saints,  and  urge  their  peti- 
tions, and  demean  myself  as  if  I  was  one.     And  all  this 


THE   RIGHT   VIEW   OF   OUR    FAULTS.  369 

before  God  !  I  do  not  mean  to  be  insincere.  I  feel,  or  1 
fancy  I  feel,  what  I  am  saying.  Yet  when  1  3ome  back 
to  the  level  of  my  daily  practice,  I  feel  as  if  my  prayer 
had  been  all  an  hypocrisy  from  beginning  to  end.  I  wish 
I  could  think  that  it  were  not  so.  There  is  no  sort  of 
proportion  between  my  prayer  and  my  practice.  The 
first  is  always  running  ahead  of  the  last,  and  so  absurdly 
far  ahead  ! 

For  when  I  come  to  practice,  generosity  in  suffering  is 
just  what  I  cannot  realize;  and  as  to  mortifications,  they 
are  simply  to  me  what  punishments  are  to  a  child.  It 
would  be  as  surprising  to  others  as  it  is  humiliating  to 
myself,  if  I  were  to  mention  what  little  things  I  do  for 
God,  and  what  a  laborious  effort  it  takes  to  do  them,  and 
what  immense  pain  it  is.  How  I  complain,  and  tremble, 
and  put  it  off,  and  hunt  for  a  justifiable  dispensation,  and 
sink  back  into  comfortable  spirituality,  as  soon  as  the 
momentary  effort  is  over.  The  revelations  I  could  make 
of  my  own  pusillanimity,  would  be  almost  incredible. 
But  I  was  grand  at  prayer  in  the  morning,  grand  as  a 
martyr  at  the  block  in  front  of  one  of  my  own  castles  in 
the  air. 

The  upshot  of  the  whole  is,  that  I  seem  to  myself  to 
be  getting  worse  and  going  back.  My  sensible  fervors 
have  gone,  and  I  do  not  see  that  they  have  left  formed 
habits  behind  them.  I  wish  I  could  name  any  one  im- 
perfection that  I  could  say  had  been  effectually  weeded 
out,  or  any  one  venial  sin,  whose  crowded  ranks  had  been 
thinned,  or  that  I  could  show  anything  beyond  a  scratch 
here  and  there  on  my  ruling  passion.  All  that  I  can  see 
is  that  I  make  as  much  effort  as  I  used  to  do,  perhaps 
irore,  but  apparently  with  less  effect. 


370  THE   RIGHT   VIEW   OF   OUR   FAULTS 

Now  is  a  person  who  gives  such  an  account  of  himself 
in  a  good  way  ?  Let  me  think.  On  the  whole,  Yes  ? 
I  found  my  judgment  on  two  things;  the  evident  desire 
for  perfection  with  which  he  began,  and  the  fact  of  con- 
tinued effort  with  which  he  ended.  Starting  then  with 
these  two  things,  he  may  reasonably  take  a  consoling  view 
of  the  rest.  But  let  us  speak  of  ourselves.  Our  faults 
are  very  numerous  and  very  great :  true.  But  is  there 
anything  to  surprise  us  in  them  ?  From  our  own  know- 
ledge of  ourselves  and  from  what  we  knew  of  the  mea- 
sure of  our  grace,  are  they  not  what  might  have  been 
expected  ?  At  times  we  have  thought  of  our  future  hum- 
bly and  prudently,  was  it  very  different  from  what  has 
actually  taken  place?  The  fact  is  that  neither  in  the 
kind  nor  in  the  degree  of  our  faults,  is  there  anything 
astonishing  :  and  if  nothing  astonishing,  then  nothing  dis- 
couraging. But  this  is  not  going  far  enough.  There  is 
something  astonishing,  and  the  astonishing  thing  is  that 
our  faults  have  not  been  greater.  When  we  weigh  our- 
selves against  our  temptations,  our  estimate  of  things  is 
very  different.  How  unlike  ourselves  we  have  happily 
been  in  many  things !  This  can  be  nothing  less  than  the 
work  of  grace.  Instead  of  being  peevish  because  we  have 
been  so  bad,  the  wonder  is  that  we  have  been  so  good,  and 
the  fear  is  lest  we  should  be  elated  in  seeing  it. 

Common-sense  also  has  a  word  or  two  to  say  on  the 
matter.  The  faults  are  committed.  They  have  done 
their  harm,  and  gone  to  God.  There  is  no  good  in  being 
cast  down.  There  is  much  good  in  not  being  so.  There 
is  no  good  in  being  cast  down ;  for  the  faults  cannot  be 
recalled.  We  may  fidget  about  the  circumstances,  and 
worry  oursdves  by  thinking  how  easily  the  evil  might 


THE  RIGHT   VIEW   OP   OUU   FAULTS.  371 

have  been  avoided.  But  the  fault  itself  lost  us  some  of 
our  peace;  why  should  we  now  lose  more  in  self-vexa- 
tion ?  Discouragement  moreover  is  no  part  of  penance. 
It  atones  for  nothing,  satisfies  for  nothing,  merits  nothing, 
impetrates  nothing.  It  does  not  make  us  more  careful 
next  time.  On  the  contrary  oy  dejecting  us  it  makes  us 
at  once  more  open  to  temptation  and  less  masculine  in 
resisting  it.  But  on  the  contrary  there  is  much  good  in 
not  being  cast  down.  We  shall  be  less  teased  with  the 
imperfection  in  ourselves,  and  more  occupied  with  the 
infidelity  to  God.  To  fall  and  not  be  out  of  spirits  with 
it  is  not  only  to  keep  the  courage  we  had,  but  to  gain 
more.  It  is  the  humblest  course,  and  on  that  account 
the  most  acceptable  to  God.  It  is  the  most  reasonable, 
and  therefore  has  the  greater  blessing. 

Sometimes  a  saint  gives  us  a  new  thought,  which  for 
what  we  can  see  is  not  to  be  found  in  any  of  the  spiritual 
writers  before  him.  It  is  his  contribution  to  the  tradi- 
tion. When  he  has  said  it,  it  sounds  so  common-place 
that  we  wonder  we  never  thought  of  it  for  ourselves,  like 
the  sayings  of  all  great  minds.  Such  a  thought  is  that 
of  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  the  man  of  many  new  thoughts, 
when  he  taught  us  that  if  in  the  spiritual  life  we  often 
fall  without  perceiving  it,  so  it  must  be  true  that  we  as  often 
get  up  again  without  perceiving  it.  It  sounds  like  a 
pleasantry  j  but  if  a  man  who  has  the  infelicitous  habit 
of  disquieting  himself  about  his  faults,  would  once  in  a 
way  take  it  for  the  subject  of  his  hour's  meditation,  ho 
would  suck  from  it  the  very  marrow  of  spiritual  wisdom 
I  should  spoil  it,  if  I  enlarged  upon  it. 

We  may  imagine  that  we  take  a  sufficiently  low  view 
of  ourselves,  and  estimate  our  attainments,  as  humility 


372  THE   RIGHT   VIEW  OF   OUR   FAULTS. 

would  approve.  But  any  disquietude  about  our  faults, 
which  is  more  than  transient,  or  a  temptation,  is  a  proof 
to  us  that  we  have  secretly  been  putting  a  far  higher 
price  i>pon  ourselves  than  we  were  warranted  in  doing. 
And  this  turning  king's  evidence  against  us  is  the  only 
good  such  disquietude  ever  does,  and  that  is  as  it  were  in 
spite  of  itself.  But  does  not  God  occasionally  show  us 
fearful  things  in  the  depths  of  our  own  souls  ?  Some- 
times a  family  with  the  sunshine  of  domestic  peace  and 
virtue  all  around  it  has  tenanted  an  ancient  house  for 
years,  when  lo  !  the  necessity  of  some  repairs  leads  to  the 
discovery  of  secret  dungeons  and  horrible  places  under 
ground,  with  traces  of  misery  suffered  there,  and  of  guilt 
perpetrated.  So  it  is  in  our  own  souls.  The  access  of 
some  unusual  temptation,  the  accidental  waking  up  of 
some  long-dormant  passion,  or  a  flash  of  supernatural 
light  from  God,  illuminate  for  a  moment  unexplored 
cavities  and  unexpected  materials  for  evil.  It  may  be 
that  the  reading  or  hearing  of  great  crimes  may  have 
brought  it  home  to  us.  But  by  whatever  means  we  make 
the  discovery,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  we  carry  about 
with  us  immense  capabilities  of  uncommitted  sin.  No- 
thing but  the  merciful  turns  of  a  considerate  Providence, 
and  the  constraining  empire  of  grace,  prevent  these  from 
being  realized  in  acts.  0  how  we  crouch  under  God's 
mantle,  and  hold  to  His  feet,  when  we  first  get  sight  of 
these  things  !  What  an  amazing,  what  a  blessed  dispro- 
portion between  the  evil  we  do  and  the  evil  we  are  capable 
of  doing,  and  seem  sometimes  on  the  very  verge  of  doing ! 
If  my  soul  has  grown  tares,  when  it  was  full  of  the  seeds 
of  nightshade,  how  happy  ought  I  to  be  !  And  that  the 
tares  have  not  wholly  strangled  the  wheat,  what  a  wonder 


THE   RIGHT   VIEW   OF   OUR   FAULTS.  373 

it  is,  an  operation  of  grace,  the  work  of  the  sacraments  1 
If  the  heathen  emperor  thanked  God  daily  for  the  tempta- 
tions which  He  did  not  allow  to  approach  him,  how  ought 
not  we  to  thank  Him  for  the  sins  we  have  not  committed  1 

Then,  again,  have  we  not  times  in  which,  I  must  express 
myself  so,  grace  seems  to.  stir  up  the  very  dregs  of  our 
nature,  and  throw  them  into  a  state  of  fiery  effervescence, 
by  some  combination  of  supernatural  chemistry  ?  What 
devils,  what  beasts,  we  look  to  ourselves  !  For  a  moment 
we  feel  as  if  we  were  polluted  by  the  sins  which  we 
might  have  committed,  and  though  a  dream,  it  is  all  so 
life-like  that  the  horrid  impression  haunts  us  for  days. 
We  are  as  heavy  as  if  we  had  very  blood  upon  our  souls. 
At  these  moments,  and  without  one  atom  of  vanity  or 
the  least  fear  of  complacency,  the  grateful  thought  of 
what  we  are,  the  thought  which  another  while  vexes  and 
disheartens  us,  is  the  pillow  of  rest  to  which  we  turn,  to 
forget  in  the  sense  of  God's  mercies  the  thought  of  what 
we  might  have  been,  and  yet  may  be.  Strange  that 
our  little  faults  should  ever  be  the  chosen  place  of  our 
repose  ! 

Here  is  another  consoling  vision.  Compare  the  drossj 
mixture  which  we  are  of  God's  grace  and  the  human 
spirit,  with  what  we  should  be  if,  without  any  touch,  or 
taste,  or  odor  of  the  devil,  God  left  your  human  spirit 
simply  to  itself.  M.  Olier  could  not  realize  this,  but 
God  made  him  see  it  by  subtracting  His  succors  from 
him.  He  showed  him  what  we  should  be  if  He  were 
merely  to  leave  us  to  ourselves.  The  intense  interest  of 
the  passages  must  excuse  the  length  of  the  quotation. 

"This  subtraction  takes  place,"  says  M.  Olier,  "with 
regard  to  sensible  grace;  for  the  divine  goodness  does 
32 


374  THE  UIGHT  VIEW   OP   OUR   FAULTS. 

not  cease  even  then  to  succor  us  with  insensible  graces, 
of  a  still  more  efficacious  kind.  The  default  of  Hia 
sensible  graces  causes  strange  effects  and  often  prodigious 
humiliations  in  the  soul.  Under  the  influence  of  those 
succors  the  will  and  the  heart  are  drawn  to  God  with 
delight,  aud  something  may  be  observed  even  in  our  ex- 
terior, the  way  in  which  we  carry  ourselves  and  the  works 
we  do,  of  an  unparalleled  sweetness,  modesty,  and  equa- 
bility. When  God  withdraws  these  sensible  gifts  He 
leaves  the  soul  in  its  nakedness,  and  as  great  lights  came 
from  them  before,  there  is  nothing  left  in  the  soul  now 
but  trouble  and  confusion.  Touched  with  compassion 
for  my  state,  God  mercifully  took  these  gifts  away  from 
me,  to  show  me  what  I  really  was,  and  thus  tenderly  dis- 
abuse me  of  my  error.  It  is  really  an  effect  of  huge 
mercy  thus  to  leave  us  to  ourselves,  else  we  should  go  on 
esteeming  self,  and  appropriating  to  ourselves  what 
belongs  to  God  only,  until  perhaps  we  might  fall  into 
a  blindness  like  that  of  Lucifer.  God  thus  shows  visibly 
to  the  soul  the  depths  of  its  own  abjection,  and  so  con- 
vinces it  of  its  misery.  For  this  sensible  grace,  which 
reined  in  the  corrupt  man  and  held  him  in  check,  having 
now  retired,  everything  is  changed  both  in  the  interio 
and  exterior.  The  Holy  Spirit  then  leaves  him  to  fee* 
the  amount  of  his  natural  unruliness  and  the  corruption 
of  his  desires.  The  bridle  is  thrown  upon  the  neck  of 
ihe  passions.  We  feel  nothing  but  anger  on  the  slightest 
occasions,  envy,  aversions,  sentiments  of  self-love,  until 
our  pride  breaks  out  externally  in  the  fierce  and  haughty 
expression  of  our  countenance.  Yet  very  often  the  soul 
does  not  at  all  contribute  to  this  by  any  thought  or 
voluntary  emotion.     It  is  the  natural  effect  of  a  rising 


THE   RIGHT   VIEW   OF   OU*    FAULTS.  375 

inuudation  of  pride,  now  that  He  is  gone  who  OCu*d  re- 
press it,  and  bid  it  hide  itself. 

"  Thus  when  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  had  raised  He  soul 
to  God  for  a  time,  retires,  the  soul,  no  longer  sustained 
by  the  fortitude  of  this  powerful  principle,  falls  In  upon 
itself,  and  seems  by  the  fall  to  relapse  into  an  abyss  of 
obscurity,  darkness,  corruption,  and  confusion,  an  abyss 
of  passions  which,  like  wild  beasts,  gnaw  and  tear  them- 
selves. In  a  word  the  soul  feels  as  if  it  had  fallen  from 
heaven  to  hell,  so  appalling  is  our  own  reality  to  ourselves. 
How  much  more  then  to  the  eye  of  God,  who  is  purity 
and  sanctity  itself.  Thus  God  leaves  in  the  midst  of  us 
that  fiery  furnace,  the  concupiscence,  which,  no  less 
than  the  ashes  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrha,  advertises  us 
of  the  judgments  of  God  pronounced  against  Adam  and 
his  posterity.  It  is  a  mouth  of  hell  which  we  bear  about 
inside  ourselves,  vomiting  a  thousand  stenches  insupport- 
able to  God,  and  which  draw  down  upon  our  sinful  flesh 
the  chastisements  of  His  avenging  arm.  I  am  not  speak- 
ing of  the  sins  which  we  have  committed  by  our  own 
malice,  but  only  of  the  humiliation  common  to  all  the 
world.  I  do  not  wonder  at  the  saints  arming  themselves 
with  holy  fury  against  themselves,  and  furnished  with 
instruments  of  penance,  cutting  their  flesh  to  pieces  and 
making  their  blood  to  flow,  in  the  justest  of  martyrdoms. 
It  was  to  show  men  what  they  ought  to  suffer  in  their 
criminal  flesh,  that  the  Son  of  God  vouchsafed  to  be 
scourged,  and  to  have  His  blood  flow,  and  His  bones  be 
dislocated.  So  when  the  sensible  succors  of  grace  retire, 
and  this  subtraction  lays  our  malice  bare,  we  feel  it  an 
ease  and  a  relief  to  be  the  butt  of  injuries  and  outrages, 
and  the  object  of  treatment  the  most  rigorous  and  the 
most  undeserved. 


376  THE   RIGHT    VIEW   OF   OUR   FAULTS. 

lt  See  how  these  subtractions  of  grace  work !  First  o\ 
all  they  give  us  a  plain  and  visible  knowledge  that  of 
ourselves  we  are  nothing  but  sin.  Then  comes  humility, 
which  makes  us  love  to  be  treated  both  by  God  and  men 
as  our  sin  deserves.  God  only  subtracts  these  sensible 
graces  to  put  more  excellent  ones  in  their  place,  like  a 
gardener  who  roots  up  one  tree  to  plant  a  better.  But.  as 
it  is  not  His  will  always  to  accomplish  the  same  operations 
in  all  men,  He  does  not  prepare  them  all  in  the  same 
way.  As  it  is  not  His  intention  to  take  an  equally  inti- 
mate possession  of  all,  He  does  not  so  utterly  and  radi- 
cally detach  some  from  themselves  as  He  does  others. 
He  makes  us  feel  these  subtractions  and  derelictions  in 
proportion  to  the  gifts  He  intends  to  confer  upon  us ;  and 
because  it  is  more  common  to  be  proud  of  the  gifts  of 
grace  than  of  those  of  nature,  and  yet  that  the  former 
pride  is  more  odious  to  Him  than  the  latter,  this  kind 
Master,  careful  of  our  good,  makes  the  gifts  of  grace 
rather  than  those  of  nature  the  theatre  of  these  subtrac- 
tions."* 

So  far  M.  Olier.  Oh  !  a  thousand  faults  that  were  not 

*  Vie.  i.  285.  It  should  be  observed  that  the  epithets,  which  M. 
Jlier  uses,  betoken  his  doctrine  on  the  subject  of  original  sin,  which 
appears  in  a  very  startling  way  in  his  Catechism  of  the  Interior 
Life;  where,  to  say  the  least,  he  has  pushed  it  to  the  extremes! 
limits  which  orthodoxy  will  allow.  Where  I  have  had  to  use  adjec- 
tives qualifying  our  fallen  nature  and  its  propensities  elsewhere  in 
the  book,  I  have  spoken  out  of  tbe  belief  that  the  state  of  origlua! 
sin  is  like  that  of  pura  natura,  with  the  exception  that  it  is  a  stat< 
of  privation.  As  a  man's  views  of  original  sin  exercise  a  great  in 
fluence  on  his  spiritual  life,  I  have  thought  it  right  to  take  exception 
to  M.  Olier's  expressions,  without  intending  to  say  anything  disre- 
spectful towards  him  of  whom  I  have  observed  elsewhere  that  of  all 
the  uncanonized  servants  of  God  whose  lives  I  have  read,  he  mnst 
resembles  a  canonized  saint. 


THE  RIGHT   VIEW   OP   OUR   FAULTS.  377 

mortal  sins,  were  better  far  than  this  nature,  emancipated 
from  the  devil,  yet  without  grace,  and  enjoying  its  own 
wretched  prerogatives,  would  be  !  See  what  we  are  at 
bottom.  Why  we  are  saints  compared  to  our  real  un- 
tempted  selves,  selves  uncompounded  with  grace  and 
God's  compassion  ! 

From  all  these  considerations  I  infer  that  we  ought  to 
be,  I  do  not  say  thoroughly  contented,  but  fairly  happy, 
if  as  time  goes  on  we  do  not  add  to  the  kinds  of  venial 
sin  of  which  we  have  to  accuse  ourselves,  nor  increase  the 
numbers  of  those  which  beset  us,  nor  fall  into  those  with 
more  advertence  than  before,  nor  give  way  more  resist- 
ingly  to  surprises  of  temptation,  and  still  continue  to 
entertain  even  in  our  worst  times  an  habitual  preference 
for  God.  These  are  five  sources  of  moderate  cheerfulness, 
which,  like  Cowper's  cups  of  tea,  while  they  cheer,  will 
not  inebriate. 

But  is  it  safe  and  wise  to  give  ourselves  up  to  these 
considerations  ?  Do  we  run  no  risk  in  thus  taking  our 
faults  quietly  ?  Let  us  then  now  consider  the  propriety 
and  spiritual  wisdom  of  so  doing.  What  is  humble  is 
safe,  provided  it  be  true  humility.  Now,  to  be  indifferent 
to  faults,  and  to  make  no  endeavor  to  improve,  would 
not  be  humility,  but  lukewarmness  or  irreligion.  But  it 
is  a  very  different  thing  to  take  our  faults  quietly,  and 
all  the  while  be  doing  our  very  best  to  mend,  and  wishing 
intensely  to  be  better.  Neither  is  there  any  danger  of 
laxity  in  it,  because  we  are  looking  to  God  j  and  laxity 
implies  a  downward,  not  an  upward  eye.  It  leads  us 
sway  from  self.  Even  self-love  makes  us  hate  self.  So 
that  ill  this  taking  of  our  faults  quietly  is  in  reality  based 
32* 


878  THE   RIGHT   VIEW   OF   OUR   FAULTS. 

upon  a  supernatural  principle,  which  both  implies  and 
ftugmjnts  interior  mortification. 

Moreover,  quietness  is  absolutely  necessary  for  spiritual 
growth  under  ordinary  circumstances.  There  are  some- 
times brief  tempests  in  the  interior  when  we  grow,  like 
children  in  an  illness.  But  these  are  eccentric  pheno- 
mena. It  is  plain  that  quietness  must  be  the  prevailing 
atmosphere  of  an  ascetic.  We  must  be  quiet  in  order  to 
pray.  Mortification  must  be  quiet,  or  else  it  will  be 
merely  vehement  nature,  growing  in  fury  as  it  grows  in 
pain.  Confidence  in  God  must  be  quiet.  The  very  word 
itself  is  full  of  the  sound  of  rest.  The  receiving  of  the 
sacraments  must  be  quiet.  Noise  and  hurry  would  be 
simple  irreverence.  Our  love  of  others  must  be  quiet, 
else  it  will  degenerate  into  earthly  tenderness.  In  a 
word,  there  is  hardly  a  function  of  the  spiritual  life 
which  does  not  require  quietness  for  its  exercise  and  ful- 
filment. Yet  faults  are  universal,  daily,  in  all  subject- 
matters,  thought,  word,  deed,  look,  omission.  They 
cover  the  whole  surface  of  life  incessantly ;  so  that  if  we 
do  not  take  them  quietly,  we  shall  never  be  quiet  at  all. 
This  is  so  absurd  a  result,  that  it  is  as  good  as  a  demon- 
stration that  we  must  take  our  faults  quietly. 

The  desire  of  perfection  is,  as  we  have  already  seen,  a 
gift  from  God,  and  a  great  gift;  and  a  generous  and 
earnest  pursuit  of  virtue  is  necessary  to  perfection.  Yet 
we  must  not  be  inordinately  attached,  either  to  the  desire 
or  the  pursuit.  If  it  is  God's  will  to  hold  us  back,  we 
must  be  content  to  be  held  back.  The  goodness  of  a 
thing  is  no  justification  of  an  unruly  eagerness  in  acquir- 
ing it.     Thi  eagerness  of  the  pursuit  will  more  than 


THE  RJGH1    VIEW   OF   OUR  FAULTS.  379 

counterbalance  the  blessing  of  the  acquisition.  Our 
falls  are  permitted.  Our  share  in  them  must  be  wiped 
away  by  cheerful,  hopeful  sorrow.  The  rest  God  will 
look  to,  and  we  must  be  at  peace. 

There  is  also  this  other  disadvantage  in  the  opposite 
line  of  conduct.  Discouragement  necessarily  brings  with 
it  a  greediness  for  consolation.  The  more  we  are  dis- 
quieted, the  more  we  fly  to  what  will  solace  and  soothe. 
And  this  is  bringing  back  self  Again  into  everything, 
besides  unnerving  us  for  genuine  struggle,  and  giving  us 
a  disrelish  for  mortification.  Consolations  from  creatures 
never  really  help,  but  very  often  hinder ;  *<nd  an  appetite 
for  them  is  a  bad  augury  of  progress. 

But  in  the  spiritual  life  there  is  never  a  permission 
without  a  caution,  never  a  relaxation  without  a  saving 
clause  against  laxity.  So  in  this  case  we  must  be  careful 
to  distinguish  hopefulness  from  self-conceit.  To  be  quiet 
under  our  faults  is  not  to  be  free  and  easy  with  them ; 
and  cheerfulness  is  a  very  different  thing  from  vanity. 
But  how  to  discern  between  the  two  ?  Hope  implies  a 
certain  amount  of  doubt,  and  that  again  implies  fear :  so 
that  when  we  hope  in  time  to  advance  beyond  the  circle 
of  particular  faults,  we  have  some,  but  a  subordinate, 
fear,  that  possibly  we  may  not  succeed.  That  fear  is 
plainly  self-distrust,  and  it  is  subordinate,  else  it  would 
be  discouragement.  Conceit  has  no  fear,  because  it  has 
no  doubt,  and  no  hope,  because  it  does  not  contemplate 
its  success  as  being  in  any  way  uncertain.  So  that  self- 
distrust  is  one  test  by  which  we  can  distinguish  hopeful- 
ness from  conceit.  A  confidence  in  Grod  more  than 
equalling  ( ur  distrust  of  self  is  another  sign      Conceit 


880  THE   RIGHT   VIEW  OP  OUR  FAULTS. 

trusts  in  itself;  and  in  its  reckonings  calculates  as  a 
right  what  humility  sees  to  be  a  grace.  A  third  test  is 
to  be  found  in  the  gradual  growth  of  the  supernatural  in 
our  feelings,  motives,  and  desires.  If  we  look  more  to 
God,  if  we  lean  more  on  sacraments,  if  we  prefer  the 
divine  will  to  our  own  spiritual  advancement,  then  we 
may  be  sure  that  our  quietness  with  our  faults  is  hopeful- 
ness, and  not  conceit. 

The  whole  question  comes  to  this.  There  are  two 
views  of  growth  in  grace,  the  self-improvement  view  and 
the  will-of-God  view.  In  these  views,  for  what  is  more 
operative  than  a  view  ?  is  the  root  of  all  the  error  and  of 
all  the  wisdom  of  the  matter.  If  a  man  puts  self-im- 
provement before  him  as  the  end  of  life,  almost  every 
step  that  he  takes  will  be  wrong.  If  he  works  away  at 
himself,  as  a  sculptor  finishes  off  a  statue,  he  will  get 
more  out  of  proportion,  and  bring  out  more  black  marks 
and  gray  blotches,  the  longer  he  chisels.  Not  a  motive 
will  be  right,  not  an  aim  true.  If  he  takes  up  his  par- 
ticular examen  and  his  rule  of  life,  and  his  periodical 
penances,  as  merely  medicinal  appliances,  if  he  shuts 
himself  up  in  a  reformatory  school  of  his  own,  if  he 
models  his  whole  spiritual  life  upon  the  complacent 
theory  of  self-improvement,  his  asceticism  will  be  nothing 
better  than  a  systematizing  and  a  glorifying  of  self-will. 
Under  such  auspices  he  can  never  be  a  spiritual  man,  and 
he  will  hardly  be  a  moral  man.  Yet  how  common  is  this 
miserable  view,  even  among  men  living  right  in  the  heart 
of  a  system  so  intensely  supernatural  as  that  of  the 
Catholic  Church. 

The  will-of-God  view,  on  the  contrary,  refers  every 
thing,  but  diligence  and  correspondence,  to  Him.    A  man 


THE   RIGHT   VIEW   OF   OUR   FAULTS.  331 

follows  God's  lead,  and  does  not  strike  out  a  road  for 
himself.  He  models  himself  in  his  measure  and  degree 
on  the  imitation  of  Jesus.  He  seeks  to  please  God,  and 
acts  out  of  love.  His  inconsistencies  neither  astonish  nor 
tease  him.  An  imperfection  annoys  him,  not  because  it 
mars  the  symmetry  of  his  character,  but  because  it  grieves 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Sacraments,  and  scapulars,  and  beads 
and  medals,  relics  and  rites,  all  find  their  places  in  his 
system ;  and  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  form  one 
whole.  God  is  always  pleased  when  a  man  seeks  humbly, 
and  in  appointed  ways,  to  please  Him.  Hence  this  man 
is  quieted,  cheerful  and  hopeful  with  his  faults.  The 
gaiety  of  endless  success  is  in  his  heart.  God  is  his 
Father.  Whereas  the  self-improvement  man  either  does1 
not  succeed  in  improving  himself,  or  he  does  so  too  slowly, 
or  he  loses  on  one  side  what  he  gains  on  the  other,  or 
people  will  persist  in  being  scandalized  at  his  edifying 
deportment,  for  with  such  men  edification  is  the  crown  of 
virtue,  and  if  they  do  not  edify,  they  have  failed.  Hence 
he  is  unquiet,  sulky,  and  desponding  about  his  faults. 
The  bitterness  of  endless  piecemeal  failure  is  in  his 
heart. 

After  death  we  shall  have  many  revelations.  I  suspect 
the  hiddenness  of  our  spiritual  growth  here  on  earth  will 
give  rise  to  some.  How  surprised  many  humble  spirits 
will  be  at  the  extraordinary  beauty  of  their  souls,  when 
death  has  disengaged  them !  So  much  more  is  always 
going  on  than  we  in  the  least  suspect  I 


3M2  THE   IRRELIGIOUS   AND    THE   ELEOT. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE   IRRELIGIOUS   AND   THE   ELEOT. 

It  is  the  most  unconverting  thing  in  the  world  to  tell  a 
man  there  is  nothing  in  his  objection.  This  is  partly  the 
reason  of  its  being  easier  to  convince  a  man  who  has  a 
valid  objection,  than  one  who  has  only  an  invalid  one. 
Not  only  because  we  have  something  definite  and  intelli- 
gible to  answer,  but  also  because  our  candor  and  fairness 
in  admitting  what  is  real  in  his  objection,  softens  and 
wins  our  opponent's  heart.  Hence  those  who  will  not 
admit  that  the  Catholic  system  presents  many  reasonable 
difficulties  to  an  external  mind,  do  not  only  themselves 
admit  a  strong  argument  against  its  divinity,  but  will  not 
usually  be  very  fertile  of  converts,  or  have  much  cause  to 
rejoice  either  in  the  progress,  or  perseverance,  or  thorough 
Catholicism,  of  the  converts  they  make. 

The  same  principle  is  the  reason  of  the  present  chapter. 
It  is  strange  that  when  a  man  has  been  so  engrossed  with 
interior  things,  he  should  be  plagued  with  external  diffi- 
culties. Yet  as  he  never  can  get  rid  of  his  liability  to 
presumption  and  discouragement,  they  each  of  them  find 
vent  in  a  difficulty  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  himself, 
and  is  a  distraction  and  an  unhappiness  to  him.  It  is 
remarkable  how  many  and  what  clear-sighted  spiritual 
persons  find  a  real  temptation  in  seeing  how  wicked  the 
world  is,  and  how  good  they  are  in  comparison  with  it, 
which  leads  them  to  presumption,  or  in  the  doctrine  of 


THE  IRRELIGIOUS   ANb   THE  ELECT.  383 

the  fewness  of  the  elect  which  casts  them  into  dejection 
I  cannot  say  that  there  is  nothing  in  an  objection  which 
teases  so  many,  or  nothing  reasonable  in  what  men  urge, 
whom  I  could  only  call  unreasonable  by  using  the  word 
in  the  usual  sense  of  controversialists,  with  whom  it  means 
a  man  who  is  hardy  enough  to  differ  from  themselves.  I 
shall  admit  the  objections  and  go  into  them,  and  so  I 
hope  to  blunt  them. 

The  progress  of  spirituality  is  the  growth  of  detach- 
ment from  the  world )  and  there  is  much  that  is  imperfect 
and  ungraceful  on  our  part  in  many  of  the  processes.  We 
do  not  all  at  once  hate  the  world  with  a  supernatural 
hatred,  when  we  have  ceased  to  love  it.  We  tremble 
with  our  old  habitual  respect  for  its  judgments,  or  we 
regard  it  with  the  critical  eye  of  a  mere  natural  aversion. 
It  is  when  we  are  in  this  last  stage,  that  the  utter  bad- 
ness of  the  world  is  a  temptation  to  us  to  think  ourselves 
saints. 

There  are  as  it  were,  five  visions  of  the  world's  wicked- 
ness which  distress  us.  For  men  either  harden  their 
hearts,  or  they  pass  God  over  altogether,  or  they  are  not 
converted  when  they  ought  to  be,  or  they  positively  hate 
God,  or  they  profess  to  serve  Him  and  are  inconsistent, 
as  devotees  often  are. 

The  first  state  is  that  of  impenitence,  the  state  of 
hardened  hearts.  Men  know  that  they  ought  to  leave  off 
sin,  and  refuse  to  do  so,  not  that  they  have  any  conscious 
hatred  of  God,  or  any  conscious  aversion  to  morality,  but 
because  they  like  sin,  and  are  willing  to  have  it  with  its 
costs  and  risks.  To  a  man  who  is  well  and  high-spirited, 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  natural  enjoyment  in  sin,  and  to 
those  who  are  ailing  or  unhappy,  there  is  both  repose  and 


884  THE   IRRELIGIOUS   AND   THE   ELECT. 

consolation  in  sensuality.  The  world  is  also  extremelj 
graceful  and  attractive  in  its  bearing.  A  man  must  be 
already  converted,  before  he  can  see  the  truth  of  the  harsh 
judgments  we  pass  upon  the  world  in  our  pulpits  and 
confessionals;  they  cannot  convert  him.  Such  men  wil- 
fully stifle  conscience  when  it  speaks,  yet  there  is  a  blind 
notion  of  the  duty  of  repentance  left  at  last,  which  few 
can  entirely  extirpate;  and  which,  if  it  is  allowed  to  dis- 
charge no  kindlier  office,  will  at  least  justify  God  in  the 
severity  of  their  eternal  doom.  Christians  would  do  well 
to  remember  that  all  confessions  without  sorrow,  and  all 
relapses  into  sin,  are  in  reality  energetic  tendencies  to 
this  state  of  impenitence.  There  is  something  in  the 
peculiar  malice  of  a  relapse  very  congenial  to  final  im- 
penitence. 

The  second  phase  of  the  world  is  indifference.  Men 
pass  God  over,  and  that  too  without  being  infidels.  This 
is  compatible,  not  only  with  an  external  profession  of 
Christianity,  but  also  with  an  intellectual  belief  in  it. 
Spiritual  men  find  something  irritatingly  odious  in  this 
state.  Indifferent  men  arrogate  to  themselves  all  the 
candor  and  moderation  in  the  world.  They  imagine  them- 
selves to  be  on  a  height,  so  that  they  look  up  at  nothing, 
but  down  upon  everything.  Inside  the  Church  they  care 
very  little  about  doctrines,  and  wish  to  stand  well  with  all 
parties.  They  have  no  keen  sense  of  the  Church,  no  sus- 
ceptibility about  the  poor,  no  instinct  about  the  heinous- 
ness  of  sin.  They  intend  to  hang  on  to  God  by  just  the 
necessary  duties,  and  no  more.  They  theologize  for  them- 
selves, and  strike  out  a  road  to  heaven  without  love,  ex 
cept  that  radical  love  which  is  in  the  soul,  will,  reason, 
brain,  blood,  bones,  and  marrow  of  organized  man  towards 


TtfE   IRRELIGIOUS   AND   TllE   ELECT.  385 

his  Creator.  All  their  views  and  all  their  interests,  are 
Bteeped  in  materialism ;  and  in  religion  they  think  them- 
selves amazingly  prudent  in  not  aiming  at  too  much,  or 
committing  themselves  to  God.  They  are  always  ready 
to  damp  every  zealous  work,  and  throw  a  dash  of  chill, 
which  is  their  notion  of  moderation,  into  everything.  To 
hear  them  talk,  you  would  suppose  the  world  was  on  fire 
with  a  romantic  love  of  God,  and  that  our  merciful  Crea- 
tor had  deputed  them  to  come  and  play  upon  the  confla- 
gration with  cold  water,  which  they  do  with  all  the  calm 
ness  and  dignity  conceivable.  It  makes  spiritual  people 
sea-sick  to  watch  these  men,  and  yet  they  will  watch  them, 
they  often  cannot  help  watching  them,  with  a  kind  of 
fascination. 

The  third  state  of  the  world  is  unconversion.  Men 
simply  do  not  think  of  God  at  all,  or  they  push  His  grace 
from  them  as  men  repel  a  shock  in  the  street,  without 
knowing  whether  it  is  man  or  thing  they  are  resisting. 
They  do  not  wish  to  make  up  their  minds  to  be  either  for 
or  against  God,  not  so  much  because  they  are  indifferent 
about  it,  but  because  they  are  deterred  by  its  difficulties. 
They  live  as  if  there  were  no  spiritual  world,  and  no  in- 
visible powers.  They  have  all  that  unsuspiciousness  of 
supernatural  things,  which  is  the  effect  of  long  self-indulg- 
ence, even  independent  of  positive  sin.  Indeed,  they  are 
often  outwardly  moral;  for  the  characters  which  shine 
most  in  domestic  life  often  belong  to  this  class.  When 
religiousness  is  obtruded  upon  them,  they  rest  in  vague 
views  of  God,  and  profane  generalities  about  His  attribute 
of  mercy,  or  they  make  the  existence  of  religious  differ- 
ences an  excuse  for  not  fairly  meeting  the  question.  Good 
people  themselves  should  remember  that  all  reserves  with 
83  z 


386  THE    IRRELIGIOUS    AND    TIIE    ELECT. 

God,  no  matter  with  how  much  other  excellence  combined, 
are  so  many  steps  to  unconversion. 

The  fourth  state  is  irreligion.  God  is  an  object  of  pos- 
itive aversion  to  many.  They  are  fidgeted  by  the  men- 
tion of  Him.  They  rise  up  in  arms  when  his  claims  are 
urged,  however  modestly.  They  are  vexed  with  holiness, 
even  where  it  can  cause  no  practical  inconvenience  to 
them.  The  definition  of  the  Immaculate  Conception 
sours  them  :  so  much  so,  that  they  cannot  sneer.  The 
canonization  of  a  saint  provokes  them,  though  how  it 
concerns  them  it  is  difficult  to  see.  They  have  a  strong 
feeling  that  religion  must  be  put  down,  and  they  look  to 
the  newspapers  to  do  it.  A  good  word  for  God  they  take 
as  a  personal  affront  to  themselves,  and,  if  intellectual 
convictions  have  moral  qualities,  they  have  an  ill-tem- 
pered disbelief  in  hell. 

The  assertion  of  the  supernatural  makes  them  fretful, 
and  they  pronounce  very  strongly  against  mortification, 
as  superstitious  and  undignified.  They  are  vehement 
against  Church  authority,  and  all  ecclesiastical  arrange- 
ments and  jurisdiction  are  gall  to  them.  Yet  they  can- 
not shake  off  an  uneasy  and  insecure  feeling  that  they 
are  not  so  infallible  as  they  wish  to  seem.  They  feel  as 
if  there  was  an  enemy  in  the  rear,  who  would  come  up 
with  them  some  day,  as  He  will  do.  This  perhaps  ex- 
plains the  ill-humor  which  is  their  prominent  character- 
istic. A  man  who  loses  his  temper  because  our  Lady 
has  appeared  on  the  steeps  of  La  Salette  is  evidently  not 
at  ease  about  his  own  religious  convictions ;  else  he  would 
smile,  not  frown.  Everyone  likes  to  be  good-humored, 
and  is  so,  when  he  can  afford  to  be. 

From  all  these  states  comes  judicial  blindness      Men 


THE   IRRELIGIOUS   AND   THE   ELECT.  387 

are  in  a  mist,  and  do  not  know  it :  only  those,  who  can 
look  upon  the  mist  from  without,  perceive  that  there  is 
any  mist  at  all.  In  this  blindness  they  neither  see  the 
evil  they  do,  nor  the  good  they  might  do.  They  are  in 
darkness  as  to  the  real  state  of  their  souls,  the  truths  of 
religion,  the  character  of  God,  and  His  dispositions  to- 
wards them.  And  so  they  go  into  eternity,  and  their 
eyes  are  opened,  and  at  last  they  see. 

A  melancholy  world  !  No  wonder  we  look  to  ourselves 
so  good  in  the  middle  of  it.  But  to  get  rid  of  the  tempt- 
ation we  fix  our  eyes  upon  the  few  good  men  in  it,  and 
with  the  most  unsatisfactory  result.  There  is  something 
especially  unpleasant  in  the  faults  of  pious  persons.  Their 
inconsistency  grates  very  harshty  upon  us.  They  ought 
to  be  humble,  and  they  are  proud.  They  should  be 
grave,  and  they  are  frivolous.  They  should  be  overflow- 
ing with  mercy,  and  they  are  abstracted  and  unsympa- 
thetic. They  are  peevish,  and  bear  less  well  than  other 
men  either  contradiction  or  interruption.  There  is  an 
annoying  littleness  about  their  faults,  which  sometimes 
makes  us  sigh  for  the  world's  great  sins.  They  make 
sacred  things  grotesque,  and  there  is  a  charmed  atmos- 
phere of  exaggeration  round  about  them.  They  judge 
each  other,  and  all  walk  different  roads.  Now  the  sting 
of  the  temptation  is  in  this  last  vision.  If  we  thought 
ourselves  good,  when  we  measured  ourselves  by  the  bad 
people,  we  are  saints  by  the  side  of  the  good.  The  more 
we  try  to  do  for  God  the  more  forcibly  all  this  comes  upon 
us,  and  times  of  prayer  and  penance  are  its  choicest  sea- 
sons. I  admit  it  is  a  trial,  enough  of  a  trial  to  be  a 
temptation ;  and  that  we  had  better  arm  ourselves  with 
some  considerations  against  it. 


OOO  THE   IRRELIGIOUS    AND   THE   ELECT. 

We  must  consider,  first  of  all,  that  men  are  very  dif« 
ferent  from  what  they  seem,  and  that  our  real  knowledge 
of  them  is  very  small  indeed.  Moreover,  even  when 
they  wish  to  do  the  reverse,  men  put  out  their  bad  and 
draw  in  their  good ;  although  badness  is  in  itself  a  much 
more  demonstrative  thing  than  goodness.  Then  what 
should  we  have  been  without  grace  ?  And  we  did  not 
merit  it  for  ourselves  at  first.  It  has  often  failed  to  move 
us  even  when  its  impulses  have  been  strong  and  lasting. 
Had  any  one  of  these  men  ever  one  such  single  impulse  ? 
Who  knows  ?  We  cannot  apply  the  doctrine  of  chance 
to  grace.  What  would  they  have  been  if  they  had  had 
our  grace  ?  It  is  inconceivable  that  any  one  should  have 
corresponded  less  faithfully  to  it  than  we  have  done.  So 
far  as  supernatural  things  are  concerned,  look  at  what  an 
advantageous  position  we  occupy,  from  our  own  past  ex- 
perience of  God's  operations  in  our  souls.  Have  they 
anything  they  can  parallel  with  that?  Who  knows? 
And  what  are  they  to  us  ?  Will  not  our  judgment  be 
solitary  ?  We  shall  not  pass  muster  in  a  crowd.  We 
shall  each  stand  alone  and  apart  before  the  "great  white 
throne"  when  the  books  are  opened;  and  as  Christ  died 
for  each  one  of  us  as  completely  as  if  He  had  no  one  else 
to  die  for,  so  we  are  judged  each  by  himself  as  if  he  were 
the  only  one  to  be  judged.  There  is  in  this  temptation, 
therefore,  an  unconscious  reference  to  the  world  as  a 
standard  and  measure,  which  shows  the  imperfection  of 
our  state.  By  our  own  grace,  by  our  own  light,  accord- 
ing to  our  own  works,  and  to  our  own  Master,  we  shall 
stand  or  fall ;  and  by  His  mercy  only  shall  even  His 
chosen  be  set  up  in  that  day. 

We  are  as  ignorant  of  the  future  of  these  rasn  as  we 


THE   IRRELIGIOUS   AND   THE   ELECT.  38C 

are  of  their  past ;  and  this  added  to  our  exaggeration  of 
their  present,  leaves  us  in  a  total  incapacity  of  judging. 
They  may  be  converted;  and  who  knows  whether  they 
will  not  then  be  great  saints?  In  the  fervor  of  their 
penance,  it  will  be  no  hard  matter  for  them  to  overshoot 
us,  and  throw  our  attainments  completely  into  the  shade. 
They  will  love  more,  because  more  has  been  forgiven 
them.  We  who  minister  to  souls  must  often  have  been 
surprised  when  bold  unblushing  sinners,  whose  very  bear- 
ing even  inspires  us  with  human  respect,  have  fallen  into 
our  hands,  to  see  what  sweetness  of  disposition,  and  child- 
like character,  and  attractive  moral  timidity  were  covered 
by  that  external  effrontery  of  voice,  of  swagger,  of  eye, 
and  of  evil  deed.  They  have  as  many  capabilities  of 
being  saints  as  we  have  possibilities  of  being  demons 
Besides  which,  if  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst,  we  surely 
knew  beforehand  that  the  world  was  God's  enemy;  for 
in  our  baptismal  engagements  we  had  pledged  ourselves 
to  renounce  it.  We  ought  not,  therefore,  to  be  surprised 
at  that  of  which  we  were  not  forewarned,  but  against 
which  we  were  solemnly  forearmed. 

As  to  the  criticism  of  the  faults  of  good  people,  is  not 
this  perhaps  rather  a  sin  than  only  a  temptation  ?  We 
have  no  business  with  them.  It  is  not  our  affair.  When 
the  world  has  become  really  and  genuinely  our  enemy, 
we  participate  in  God's  right  to  judge  it.  But  it  is  not 
bo  with  His  own  servants.  It  is  an  injury  to  ourselves, 
because  it  takes  off  our  attention  from  our  own  souls. 
But  the  main  thing  to  consider  is,  that  we  can  come  to  no 
fair  estimate  of  devout  people,  or  test  their  progress  in 
holiness.  This  is  partly  for  the  same  reasons  which 
applied  to  worldly  men,  and  partly  f  }r  others  peculiar  to 


390  THE   IRRELIGIOUS   AND   THE   ELECT. 

themselves.  The  spiritual  life  is  greatly  a  matter  of  ex« 
terior  motives  and  interior  combats.  Now  we  can  know 
only  the  outside;  faults  are  plainer  to  see  than  virtues. 
One  sin  docs  not  make  a  habit,  perhaps  not  even  many. 
Falls  may  be  surprises,  or  they  may  be  violences.  Old 
manners  often  remain  after  inward  conversion,  just  as 
strong  scents  linger  in  jars  and  bottles.  God  leads  men 
bo  differently,  that  there  are  almost  as  many  diversities 
in  the  spiritual  life,  as  there  are  human  faces  and  features 
in  the  world.  To  know  a  man's  progress  we  must  know 
his  besetting  sin,  and  we  do  not  know  it.  It  is  not 
always  the  amount  of  grace  given,  which  is  the  index, 
but  the  proportion  of  correspondence  to  what  is  given. 
Even  the  saints  seem  paradoxical;  and  in  one  word 
charity  means  breadth,  and  a  charity  which  is  not  broad 
is  not  charity  at  all.  There  is  no  one  in  the  world  who 
does  not  excel  us  in  some  one  thing ;  and  charity  believes 
in  that  one  thing  against  sight,  and  conjectures  more. 

So  much  for  the  temptation  to  presumption.  I  do  not 
say  I  have  answered  it ;  for  I  began  by  allowing  it.  But 
I  have  fastened  a  counter-weight  to  it,  which  ought  to 
make  it  slide  easily,  and  not  let  it  jerk  us  out  of  our 
place.  I  have  now  to  meet  the  other  temptation  to  dis- 
couragement, which  is  based  in  a  continual,  ever-present, 
depressing  thought  of  the  number  of  the  elect.  I 
allow  the  temptation ;  I  do  not  think  anything  can  ex- 
aggerate its  misery,  and  shall  only  endeavor  to  balance  it. 

We  ought  to  be  less  inclined  to  treat  this  temptation 
lightly,  because  it  comes  so  frequently  from  physical  tem- 
perament or  the  present  state  of  health,  and  those  who 
are  most  affected  by  it  are  the  least  to  blame,  either  for 
briAging  it  on  themselves  or  idly  magnifying  it  when  it 


THE    IRRELIGIOUS   AND   THE   ELEOT.  391 

has  come.  The  same  questions  which  cast  a  salutary 
fear  into  the  lukewarm,  tease,  bewilder,  and  sadden  the 
good.  If  the  temptation  to  think  ourselves  good  because 
the  world  is  bad,  may  be  rather  a  sin  than  a  temptation, 
the  temptation  to  despair  because  the  elect  are  so  few, 
may  be  called  more  a  suffering  than  a  temptation. 

The  way  in  which  this  temptation  comes  about,  seems 
to  be  as  follows.  In  most  cases  the  subject  is  prepared 
by  indisposition,  nervousness,  bodily  ailments,  an  accu- 
mulation of  temporal  misfortunes,  or  the  oppression  of 
some  sadness.  Then  we  begin  to  calculate  our  own 
chances  of  salvation  as  nearly  as  it  is  in  our  power  to  do 
so,  which  is  foolish ;  but  the  attraction  to  do  so  at  times 
is  irresistible.  We  put  the  greatness  of  the  reward,  and 
our  own  demerits,  alongside  of  each  other.  We  measure 
our  actual  practice  by  the  requirements  of  God's  law. 
We  stand  by  the  side  of  the  saints,  and  see  how  tall  we 
are.  And  what  is  the  inevitable  consequence  of  these 
processes?  Do  we  look  as  if  we  were  picked  out,  or 
elect?  Can  any  one  possibly  think  so?  The  occupations 
of  eternity  are  to  a  certain  extent  revealed  to  us ;  should 
we  be  happy  and  our  tastes  suited  in  them  ?  Then  we 
get  darker  and  darker  as  we  go  along.  Are  we  really  in 
any  habitual  anxiety  about  the  salvation  of  our  souls? 
Is  the  spiritual  life  in  any  sense  a  contest  with  us  ?  If 
it  is,  what  are  we  contesting,  and  with  whom  ? 

Then  we  are  snatched  away  from  ourselves,  and  borne 
far  off,  and  put  down  amid  uninhabited  mountains  by  a 
dark  sea,  whose  angry  breakers  wake  eternal  echoes.  We 
are  in  the  midst  of  the  everlasting  predestination  of  the 
Divine  Mind.  It  is  the  scene  of  the  first  act  of  God 
towards  ourselves.     How  immense  that  act,  on  any  view 


392  THE   IRRELIGIOUS   AND   THE   ELECT. 

how  potent,  and  how  utterly  unknown !  The  freedom 
of  our  will  is  as  clearly  uninjured  by  that  act  as  the 
elouds  are  unpolluted  by  the  sunbeam.  Nevertheless, 
how  awful  is  the  mere  fact  that  the  doom  we  shall  even- 
tually work  out  for  ourselves  is  known  already  by  Him, 
who  has  prepared  our  place  for  us.  Somewhere  in  crea- 
tion a  lodging  is  ready,  and  is  empty.  It  is  ours  j  but 
where?  Above?  Below?  He  must  have  an  impene- 
trably exterior  mind  through  whom  this  doubt  does  not 
often  thrill,  like  a  current  of  electricity.  At  first  sight 
and  first  sound,  Scripture  seems  to  speak  of  the  fewness 
of  the  elect  and  of  the  difficulty  of  salvation,  and  what 
we  actually  observe  among  men  bears  this  out.  How  few 
promise  well  for  heaven  !  The  freedom  of  our  own  will 
only  adds  nervousness  to  the  question.  God  being  the 
Father  He  is,  there  would  be  more  security  for  us  in  His 
absolute  sovereignty.  But  he  knows  best.  He  has  put 
our  souls  into  our  hands,  but  He  has  still  mercifully  kept 
them  in  His  own.  Free  will  without  grace  would  be  de- 
moniacal despair. 

Now,  not  in  answer  to,  but  in  palliation  of,  all  this,  I 
tmall  make  two  observations.  The  first  is  this.  If  we 
can  know  nothing  about  the  future,  we  can  at  least  know 
a  great  deal  about  the  present.  In  spiritual  matters  God 
;s  pleased  to  instruct  His  Church  by  His  saints,  and  the 
Church  before  canonizing  them,  sets  her  seal  upon  their 
writings.  Now  the  saints  mention  seven  things,  which 
they  call  the  signs  of  predestination.  This  means  some- 
thing more  than  that  they  are  symptoms  of  our  being  at 
present  in  a  state  of  grace  and  the  way  of  holiness.  It 
means  that  they  are  to  a  certain  extent  prophecies  of  the 
future,  not  infallibly  true  but  supernaturally  hopeful.    Jt 


THE   IRRELIGIOUS   AND   THE   ELECT.  393 

means  that  they  are  the  sort  of  things  to  be  expected  in 
the  elect,  and  not  to  be  expected  in  others ;  things  essential 
to  the  elect,  and  which  through  all  the  centuries  of  the 
Church  have  distinguished  the  elect.  Hence  if  we  find 
all,  many,  or  a  few  of  them  in  ourselves,  we  are  legiti- 
mately entitled  to  proportionate  consolation.  They  are,  the 
imitation  of  Christ,  devotion  to  our  Blessed  Lady,  works 
of  mercy,  love  of  prayer,  self-distrust,  the  gift  of  faith, 
and  past  mercies  from  God.  We  must  also  bear  in  mind 
of  all  these  things,  that  it  is  not  the  plenary  possession 
of  them  which  counts  with  God,  and  so  is  a  sign  of  pre- 
destination, but  the  earnest  desire  of  them  and  the  sin- 
cere endeavor  after  them.  What  wonder  the  theologian 
Viva  should  make  the  number  of  the  saved  so  large,  and 
the  saint  of  Geneva  almost  doubt  if  any  Catholics  were 
lost? 

My  second  observation  is  this.  We  are  discussing  a 
temptation  of  the  catholic  spiritual  life;  and  we  may 
keep  to  what  is  strictly  practical.  Consequently  we  are 
dispensed  from  touching  on  the  question  of  the  fewness- 
of  the  elect  out  of  the  whole  number  of  mankind.  We 
have  nothing  to  do  with  curiosity  about  the  future  desti- 
nies of  heathen  and  of  heretics.  I  do  not  want  to  lose 
my  soul  by  losing  my  temper  with  God  because  He  has 
not  told  me  how  He  is  going  to  manage  His  own  creation. 
Their  chances  will  obviously  be  regulated  by  the  greatness 
of  the  boon  which  the  gift  of  faith  is  to  the  soul.  To  us 
there  can  be  no  trouble  in  this.  The  grave  opinions  of 
theologians  will  teach  us  all  we  need  either  know  or  tc 
surmise,  which  is  very  little.  Our  business  is  with 
the  doubt  whether  few  Catholics  will  be  saved,  and  how 
far  we  may  reverently  take  comfort  from  the  indications? 


394  THE   IRRELIGIOUS   AND   THE   ELECT. 

of  God's  will  in  His  Holy  Word,  and  in  the  reasons  of 
theology. 

First  of  all  we  have  St.  John's  Vidi  turbam  magnam, 
which  sounds  in  our  ears  at  Sext  through  the  octave  of 
All  Saints.  I  saw  a  great  multitude,  which  no  man 
could  number,  of  all  nations,  and  tribes,  and  people,  and 
tongues,  standing  before  the  throne,  and  in  sight  of  the 
Lamb,  clothed  with  white  robes  and  palms  in  their  hands.* 
Secondly,  a  Spanish  theologian  says,  we  may  surely  with 
great  reverence  suppose,  that  it  befits  the  goodness  of  God 
that  the  number  of  the  elect  should  equal,  or  surpass, 
that  of  the  lost.  This  would  carry  the  benignant  inter- 
pretation far  beyond  what  the  interests  of  catholics  only 
would  require ;  and  it  certainly  seems  to  involve  in 
obscurity  certain  words  of  our  Lord's  which  seem  very 
plain.  However  it  is  something  to  know  what  so  holy 
and  enlightened  a  man  as  Da  Ponte  thought.  He  must 
have  taken  into  account  the  multitude  of  baptized  infants. 
Thirdly,  there  may  be  an  analogy  between  the  angels  and 
ourselves;  and  only  a  third  of  them  fell,  as  the  Apoca- 
lypse tells  us.  Neither  is  it  true  that  the  places  in 
heaven  are  only  the  vacancies  left  by  the  angels.  There 
is  a  huge  multitude  beside.  This  nearly  all  theologians 
teach  j  and  some  have  said  that  as  many  men  will  be 
saved  as  angels,  if  not  more.  Of  course  these  are  only 
opinions.  But  then  our  temptation  is  only  an  opinion 
also.  It  is  ours  against  theirs,  and  ours  only  so  long  as 
it  torments  us,  for  we  should  be  glad  to  get  rid  of  it,  if 
we  could.  Fourthly,  the  glory  of  our  Lord  seems  to 
require  that  the  fruit  of  His  Passion  should  be  very 
multitudinous.  The  Holy  Innocents  are  a  sample  of  thi» 
*  Apoc.  vii.  9 


THE   IRRELIGIOUS   AND   THE   ELECT.  395 

Isaias  says  of  His  Passion,*  If  He  shall  lay  down  His 
life  for  sin,  He  shall  see  a  long-lived  seed,  and  the  will 
of  the  Lord  shall  be  prosperous  in  His  hand  Because 
His  soul  hath  labored,  He  shall  see  and  be  filled.  Fifthly, 
the  glory  and  joy  of  the  Blessed  themselves  seem  to 
require  multitude,  especially  too  as  they  are  arranged  in 
different  orders  and  degrees ;  and  multitude  is  also  suit- 
able  to  the  magnificence  of  place,  as  Baruch  saysf  0 
Israel,  how  great  is  the  house  of  God,  and  how  vast  is 
the  place  of  His  possession.  It  is  great  and  hath  no  end* 
it  is  high  and  immense.  Sixthly,  of  the  two  thieves  one 
was  saved,  and  of  the  twelve  apostles  only  one  fell.  These 
are  all  bad  arguments,  taken  simply,  but  collectively 
they  establish  a  lawful  benignant  supposition.  Seventhly, 
our  Lord  Himself  says,  In  my  Father's  house  are  many 
mansions,  and  then  as  if  he  foresaw  all  our  trouble,  He 
adds  with  deep  and  sweet  significancy,  If  it  were  not  so, 
I  would  have  told  you.  It  was  these  considerations 
which  led  St.  Francis  of  Sales  and  Viva  to  the  belief 
that  by  far  the  greater  number  of  catholics  would  b* 
saved. 

We  read  in  the  life  of  St.  Philip  that  in  the  monastery 
of  Santa  Marta,  a  nun  named  Scholastica  Gazzi,  went  to 
speak  to  him  at  the  grate,  and  to  lay  open  to  him  a 
thought  she  had  never  mentioned  to  any  one  else,  which 
was  a  conviction  that  she  should  be  damned.  As  soon  as 
St.  Philip  saw  her,  he  said  to  her,  What  are  you  doing, 
Scholastica,  what  are  you  doing?  Paradise  is  yours. 
Nay,  father,  replied  the  nun,  I  fear  the  contrary  will  be 
the  ease :  I  feel  as  though  I  should  be  damned.  No, 
answered  the  saint,  J.  tell  you  that  paradise  is  yours,  and 
*UU.  10.  fiii.24 


896  THE   IRRELIGIOUS   AND    THE   ELECT. 

I  will  prove  it  to  you :  tell  me,  for  whom  did  Christ  die? 
For  sinners,  said  she.  Well !  said  Philip,  and  what  are 
you  ?  A  sinner,  replied  the  sister.  Then,  concluded  the 
saint,  Paradise  is  yours,  yours  because  you  repent  of  your 
Bins.  This  conclusion  restored  peace  to  Sister  Scholar 
tica's  mind.  The  temptation  left  her  and  never  troubled 
her  again;  but  on  the  contrary,  the  words  Paradise  is 
yours,  yours,  seemed  always  sounding  in  her  ears.  Gentle 
reader !  may  St.  Philip  do  the  same  for  you  and  me ! 

Now,  here  is  no  answer  to  our  temptation ;  but  here  is 
another  side  to  it.  Let  us  pray  for  the  gift  of  holy  and 
discerning  fear.  Then  let  us  go  on  joyously,  adding 
grace  to  grace,  and  love  to  love,  and  doubt  not  of  our 
eternity.  Heaven  will  come  soon.  The  temptation  is,  to 
be  impatient  because  it  does  not  come  sooner.  Yet  as 
God  wills.  It  shall  be  our  act  of  love  to  Him  that  we 
*?ait  where  we  are,  and  for  his  sake  be  content  to  live. 
Life  is  a  hardship,  but  not  a  very  grievous  one ;  for  it 
does  not  hinder  our  loving  God.  And  short  of  that,  aU 
griefs  can  be  but  light. 


THE   TRUE   IDEA   OF   DEVOTION. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

THE   TRUE   IDEA   OP   DEVOTION. 

Devotion  is  a  word  which  has  a  great  many  meanings, 
fcnd  it  is  unfortunately  seldom  used  in  the  right  one. 
Sometimes  it  is  used  to  express  a  part  of  itself  instead  of 
the  whole,  sometimes  one  or  other  of  its  accidents,  some- 
times one  of  its  kinds,  sometimes  one  of  its  characteris- 
tics, and  sometimes  its  effects,  as  its  sweetness,  beauty, 
and  heroism.  But  it  is  useless  to  appeal  to  etymology,  or 
to  fi^ht  about  words.  The  substance  is  to  have  a  right 
idea  of  the  thing  intended  to  be  conveyed.  To  point  out 
some  of  the  mistakes  of  ordinary  conversation,  will  be  a 
step  towards  this. 

We  say  that  a  person  gives  too  much  time  to  devotion, 
and  not  enough  to  his  worldly  affairs,  or  works  of  charity 
Here  by  devotion  we  obviously  mean  prayer.  We  say 
that  a  man  is  too  devout;  and  here  by  devotion  we  under- 
stand the  acts  which  concern  the  direct  worship  of  God. 
When  we  talk  of  having  had  a  great  deal  of  devotion  at 
a  certain  church,  or  on  a  certain  feast,  we  mean  by  the 
word  spiritual  sweetness.  Or  a  thing  is  devout  which 
inspires  us  with  serious  feelings,  or  is  in  good  religious 
taste.  We  often  use  the  word  for  recollection,  for  much 
church-going,  and  the  like.  There  is  a  truth  and  a 
meaning  in  all  these  expressions,  and  it  is  useless  to 
quarrel  with  them.  But  they  have  not  unfrequently  done 
harm  by  making  the  true  idea  of  devotion  less  clear.  One 
34 


S98  THE   TRUE   IDEA   OF   DEVOTION. 

fact  all  this  shows,  that  as  the  word  has  fastened  itself  to 
so  many  holy  practices,  and  clothed  itself  in  so  many 
respectable  significations,  the  thing  must  be  of  no  incon- 
siderable importance.  Indeed,  to  the  misunderstanding 
of  it  much  that  is  unreal,  sentimental,  fickle,  and  exagge- 
rated in  spiritual  persons,  is  to  be  attributed. 

In  theology,  devotion  means  a  particular  propension  of 
the  soul  to  God,  whereby  it  devotes  itself,  commits  itself, 
binds  itself  over,  consecrates  itself,  to  the  worship  and 
service  of  God.  This  it  may  do  by  vow,  by  oath,  or  by 
simple  sentiment.  Thus  an  author,  who  once  passed 
under  the  name  of  St.  Augustine,  says  that  devotion  is 
the  action  of  turning  ourselves  towards  God  with  a  humble 
and  pious  affection  j  humble  because  of  the  consciousness 
of  our  own  weakness,  and  pious  because  of  our  trust  in 
the  divine  compassion.  But  St.  Thomas  more  accurately 
as  well  as  more  clearly  defines  it,  as  the  will  to  do 
promptly  whatever  belongs  to  the  service  of  God,  and  as 
Valentia  warns  us,  it  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  fervor, 
no  uncommon  mistake.  St.  Francis  of  Sales  defines  it  to 
be  a  kind  of  charity  by  which  we  not  only  do  good,  but  do 
it  carefully,  frequently,  and  promptly.  It  falls  under  the 
virtue  of  religion.  Directly,  it  is  an  act  of  the  will,  im- 
plying indirectly  an  act  of  the  understanding  which 
excites  the  will.  Its  cause  is  extrinsic,  namely,  God 
Himself,  acting  through  intrinsic  grace.  St.  Francis  of 
Sales  remarks  that,  though  a  kind  of  love,  it  is  something 
more  than  the  love  of  God ;  and  that  "  something  more" 
is  a  certain  vivacity  in  doing  what  the  love  of  God  would 
bave  us  do.  Perhaps  I  may  then  be  permitted  to  call 
devotion  spiritual  agility,  which  seems  to  express  what 
St.  Thomas  and  St.  Francis  say. 


THE   TRUE   IDEA  OP  DEVOTION.  399 

Thus  it  appears  that  devotion  is  a  very  grave,  solid, 
hard-headed,  stout-willed,  business-like  affair,  and  not  at 
all  the  sweet,  fervid,  heroic,  graceful,  tender  thing  it  is 
often  taken  for.  It  is  well  when  it  has  all  the  qualities 
these  latter  epithets  imply.  But  when  they  are  there, 
they  add  something  to  it,  and  do  not  express  merely  its 
own  nature.  If  it  did  not  sound  like  a  play  upon  words,  I 
would  say  that  it  is  desirable  we  should  have  a  more 
theological  and  a  less  devotional  idea  of  devotion  than  we 
sommonly  have. 

Theologians  go  on  to  divide  devotion  into  substantial 
and  accidental,  and  accidental  they  subdivide  again  into 
accidental  spiritual,  and  accidental  sensible.  Substantial 
devotion  is  that  intelligent  promptitude  of  the  will  to 
serve  God,  which  rests  on  no  attraction  of  the  imagination 
or  sweetness  of  the  affections,  but  on  the  principles  of  the 
faith,  and  fixes  the  soul  in  a  solid  resolution  to  serve  God, 
under  whatever  circumstances.  Without  this  substantial 
devotion  no  other  is  worth  anything,  no  other  is  enduring, 
no  other  is  a  reasonable  service.  Next  to  the  gift  of  faith 
we  should  prize  nothing  so  much  as  this  substantial  devo- 
tion. Accidental  spiritual  devotion  is  in  reality  only  a 
state  of  substantial  devotion,  to  which  God  is  mercifully 
pleased  to  add  His  gift  of  sweetness.  A  certain  recrea- 
tion, corroboration,  comfort  of  spirit,  flows  from  Him  into 
us,  and  rests  in  our  spirit  without  at  all  descending  to  the 
sensitive  part  of  our  nature.  This  adds  to  the  agility  of 
substantial  devotion,  and  gives  it  more  force  to  overcome 
difficulties,  and  a  certain  kind  of  pleasure  in  overcoming 
them.  Accidental  sensible  devotion  is  a  state  of  sub- 
stantial devotion,  and  also  of  accidental  spiritual  devotion, 
wherein  God  condescends  still  further  to  our  infirmities 


400  THE   TRUE   IDEA  OF  DEVOTION. 

or  needs,  and  lavishes  upon  us  still  more  sensibly  the 
caresses  of  His  love,  by  allowing  His  sweetness  not  only 
to  inundate  our  spirits,  but  also  to  flow  down  into  our 
sensitive  appetites,  and  sometimes  into  our  very  flesh  and 
blood.  Hence  it  follows  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  dry- 
ness and  desolation  :  desolation  of  spirit,  which  consists  in 
the  privation  of  accidental  spiritual  devotion,  and  leaves 
us  in  the  state  of  bare  substantial  devotion ;  and  desola- 
tion of  sense,  which  consists  in  the  privation  of  accidental 
sensible  devotion,  and  stays  the  divine  sweetness  in  the 
upper  parts  of  our  nature,  as  our  Blessed  Lord  cut  off  the 
waters  of  His  divinity  from  the  lower  parts  of  His  soul 
in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane. 

It  is  thus  of  great  importance  to  distinguish  the  effects 
of  devotion  from  devotion  itself;  and  S.  Thomas  helps 
us  to  do  this  in  a  very  simple  and  clear  manner.  The 
school  of  S.  Thomas  is  always  speaking  of  "  light"  and 
" understanding j"  these  are  in  his  teachings  what  "will" 
and  "  affections"  are  in  the  school  of  Scotus.  So  here 
he  says  that  devotion  causes  a  light  in  the  soul,  and  that 
the  effects  of  this  light  vary  according  to  the  objects  on 
which  it  falls.  If  it  brings  the  beauty  of  God  close  to 
the  soul  so  that  it  has  a  certain  enjoyment  of  Him,  the 
result  is  joy  and  gladness.  If  it  shows  God  far  off,  be- 
yond the  reach  of  our  nothingness  and  the  attainment  of 
our  weak  desires,  then  it  causes  the  pain,  not  altogether 
painful,  of  desire  and  spiritual  anxiety.  If  it  shows  us 
our  own  sinfulness  and  vileness,  the  result  is  a  gracious 
sorrow  and  holy  affliction. 

Putting  this  doctrine  of  the  Angelic  Doctor  before  our 
eyes,  how  strange  must  seem  the  delusions  of  those  who 
are  perpetually  seeking  devotion  where  it  is  not  to  be 


THE  TRUE   IDEA  OP  DEVOTION.  401 

found,  and  perpetually  lamenting  the  absence  of  one  of 
its  merest  accidents  and  adjuncts,  as  if  the  soul  had  fallen 
off  from  God  altogether.  Many  seek  it  in  sweetnesses, 
which  are  simply  God's  gratuitous  favors,  and  which 
nothing  would  be  less  likely  to  merit  than  a  greediness 
to  have  them.  Many  look  for  it  in  freedom  from  tempta- 
tions, which  may  be  either  a  displeased  condescension  to 
our  slow  convalescence  from  sin,  or  a  withdrawal  of  the 
materials  of  merit  because  we  have  been  found  unworthy 
of  perfection,  or  an  engrossing  concentration  of  the  human 
spirit  in  some  temporary  occupation,  or  a  stratagem  of 
Satan  for  purposes  he  will  hereafter  disclose.  Some 
seek  it  in  a  multitude  of  practices,  as  if  a  man's  strength 
consisted  in  the  multitude  of  things  he  had  to  do,  and 
not  rather  that  he  could  do  a  multitude  of  things  because 
he  was  strong:  and  what  if  the  multitude  of  things 
should  break  his  back  ?  Some  are  so  foolish  as  tc  seek 
it  in  a  sensible  love  of  images  and  pictures,  which  is  like 
asking  matter  to  have  the  goodness  to  make  mind  spiritual, 
n  thing  which  a  man  might  not  say  even  of  the  wonder- 
ful sacraments  themselves.  This  mistake  first  weakens 
the  head,  secondly  turns  us  unreal,  and  thirdly  makes  us 
foolish.  Some  seek  devotion  in  vehement  resolutions 
There  is  little  good  to  be  found  in  vehemence  of  any 
kind  in  the  spiritual  life.  And  this  amounts  to  confound- 
ing  the  intention  to  be  virtuous  with  the  actual  possession 
of  the  virtue  itself,  to  which  it  is  but  a  help.  Some  seek 
it  in  continually  increasing  austerities.  But  it  is  not  the 
invariable  reward  even  of  these.  They  often  make  a 
heart  still  harder,  whose  want  of  tenderness  is  the  true 
cause  of  its  want,  of  devotion.     I  distrust  all  austerities 

done  for  a  purpose.     They  should  only  be  the  twofold 
34*  2A 


102  THE   TRUE    IDEA    OF    DEVOTION. 

expression  of  love  desiring  at  once  to  take  vengeance 
upon  self  and  to  imitate  her  mortified  Redeemer.  Some 
seek  devotion  in  sighs  and  tears,  when  these  sighs  and 
tears  themselves  must  have  come  out  of  devotion,  and 
be  its  outside  accidents,  to  be  themselves  worth  anything 
ut  all.  Some  place  it  in  violent  contrition.  But  contri- 
tion is  a  calm,  intelligent,  sorrowful  purpose,  so  far  as  our 
side  goes;  its  violence  and  intensity  are  the  gifts  of  God. 
Some  even  place  it  in  an  ability  to  echo  the  hot  and  fer- 
vent words  of  others,  forgetting  first,  that  there  is  hardly 
any  state  of  feeling  to  which  we  cannot  work  ourselves 
up  if  we  please,  and  secondly,  that  there  is  no  feeling 
which  we  cannot  deceive  ourselves  into  believing  we  feel. 
Yet  what  baseless  fabrics  of  radiant  devotion  often  rest 
on  this  treacherous  chasm  !  And  lastly  some  think  it 
consists  in  discerning  what  God  is  actually  doing  in  our 
30uls.  But  to  see  our  own  devotion  is  only  to  know  we 
have  got  it,  not  to  cause  it.  Here  are  ten  delusions 
which  fade  away  in  the  plain  light  of  St.  Thomas  and 
his  doctrine. 

"We  have  already  seen  in  what  devotion  consists .  but 
how  are  we  to  know  it  ?  What  are  its  infallible  signs, 
its  invariable  concomitants,  if  these  things  are  not?  It 
is  known  by  the  strong  practical  will,  which  without  rely- 
ing upon  itself  puts  forth  every  effort,  and  does  not  spare 
itself.  It  is  known  by  a  promptitude  or  agility  of  action 
which  fears  no  kind  of  work  and  limits  itself  to  no 
degree,  which  has  no  reserves  with  God,  and  does  not 
stipulate  for  its  reward.  Perseverance  shows  itj  for 
God's  favours  are  meant  to  be  transient,  and  man's  delu- 
sions are  showy  and  deceitful,  while  substantial  devotion 
alon*  endures.     It  shows  itself  in  suffering  and  self-vio 


THE   TRUE   IDEA   OF   DEVOTION.  403 

lence  •  for  though  other  things  have  the  spirit  to  attempt 
great  deeds,  devotion  alone  can  carry  them  through.  It 
is  manifest  in  the  sanctification  of  our  ordinary  actions,  a 
grace  which  has  this  privilege,  that  no  delusion  can 
counterfeit  it  with  success.  It  shows  itself  in  unselfish- 
ness and  the  renunciation  of  our  own  interests,  whereas 
all  its  spurious  imitations  seek  self  only,  under  a  more 
or  less  palpable  disguise.  In  speaking  of  its  signs,  how- 
ever, we  must  remember  that  substantial  devotion  is  an 
essentially  inferior  thing;  and  many  consequences  flow 
from  this  one  truth.  Moreover  it  is  a  habit,  and  habits 
do  not  commonly  become  sensible  except  in  acts.  It  is 
the  doing  of  the  act  which  makes  substantial  devotion 
apparent,  and  the  sweetness  accompanying  the  doing  of 
it  which  makes  devotion  sensible. 

What  then,  it  may  be  asked,  are  Special  Devotions, 
and  how  do  they  fit  in  with  what  has  been  said  of  devo- 
tion in  general  ?  I  must  repeat  somewhat,  in  order  to 
make  this  plain.  Devotion  is  a  devoting  of  ourselves  to 
God,  a  loving  promptitude  of  the  will  in  all  that  concerns 
His  worship  and  service,  a  spiritual  agility.  It  is  this 
which  renders  all  acts  of  virtue  acceptable  and  merito- 
rious ;  for  it  is  the  hand  wherewith  grace  touches  them. 
It  is  caused  extrinsically  by  God,  intrinsically  by  medita- 
tion ;  and  the  effects  of  it  are  joy,  tenderness,  softness  of 
heart,  and  delighted  peace.  Hence  a  tender  devotion  is 
the  characteristic  of  the  Gospel.  But  as  substantial  de 
votion  rests  on  the  principles  of  faith,  all  forms  of  heresy 
lose  tenderness,  as  any  one  may  see  who  is  acquainted 
with  their  history,  or  has  compared  the  mysticism  outside 
the  Church  with  the  mysticism  within  it.  Tenderness  in 
devotion  is  necesparily  orthodox. 


404  THE  TRUE   IDEA   OP  DEVOTION. 

Now  devotion  is  a  practical  acting  out  of  a  belief  ip 
spiritual  things  and  in  an  unseen  world ;  and  Christianity 
is  a  worship  not  of  things,  but  of  Divine  Persons,  dis- 
closing themselves  to  us  in  certain  mysteries,  which  are 
for  the  most  part  mysteries  of  sorrow  and  suffering. 
Thus  the  Infancy  and  Passion  of  our  Lord,  the  Blessed 
Eucharist,  the  dolors  of  our  Lady,  the  acts  of  the  martyrs, 
are  things  especially  calculated  to  win  and  soften.  This 
was  the  character  our  Lord  intended  to  give  to  His  reli- 
gion ;  and  He  made  every  circumstance  of  the  Incarna- 
tion and  every  feature  of  the  Church  contribute  to  this 
unexampled  and  celestial  pathos.  Every  such  mystery, 
circumstance,  and  feature  becomes  in  its  degree  the  ob- 
ject of  a  special  devotion. 

Every  man  who  is  a  friend  of  God,  is  in  a  state  of 
habitual  or  sanctifying  grace,  in  which  his  friendship  with 
his  Creator  consists.  Upon  this  habitual  grace  God  is 
endlessly  sending  down  the  impulses  of  His  actual  grace, 
illustrating  the  understanding,  as  I  believe,  in  every  cir- 
cumstance of  life,  and  not  merely  rarely  and  on  great  oc- 
casions. In  addition  to  these  two  kinds  of  grace,  every 
baptized  person  has  infused  into  his  soul  seven  superna- 
tural gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  These  gifts  S.  Thomas 
defines  to  be  certain  habits  by  which  a  man  is  enabled 
promptly  to  obey  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  S.  Bonaventure, 
habits  disposing  a  man  to  follow  the  instinct  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  These  gifts  lie  in  the  soul  as  keys  of  an  instru- 
ment on  which  no  one  is  playing.  They  are  passive, 
habitual,  and  form  a  state,  just  as  sanctifying  grace  does. 
They  are  played  upon  according  to  the  needs  of  our  spi- 
ritual life  by  what  are  called  the  actual  impulses  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  which  correspond  in  their  subject  -matter 


THE   TRUE   IDEA   OF   DEVOTION.  405 

to  actual  grace,  standing  in  the  f,ame  relation  to  the  ha- 
bitual gifts  as  it  does  to  habitual  grace. 

Of  these  gifts,  four  belong  to  the  intellect,  Wisdom, 
Understanding,  Science,  and  Counsel;  and  three  to  the 
will,  Fortitude,  Piety,  and  Fear.  Tender  devotion  is  the 
fruit  of  the  gift  of  Piety,  which  may  be  defined  to  be 
the  divine  ray  that  illuminates  the  mind,  and  bends  the 
heart  to  worship  God  as  our  most  loving  Father,  and  to 
help  our  neighbor  as  His  image.  But  teuderness  of  its 
own  nature  specializes,  that  is,  it  singles  out  an  object 
and  magnifies  it,  and  for  the  time  excludes  other  objects 
from  its  loving  attention.  Thus  it  always  comes  to  pass 
that  there  is  a  dash  of  exaggeration  in  Special  Devotions, 
which  makes  it  the  more  needful  that  devotion  should  be 
orthodox,  and  take  heed  to  the  analogy  of  faith.  They 
must  be  exclusive  in  order  to  be  special,  and  what  is  ex- 
clusive has  a  tendency  to  be  exaggerated.  It  may  almost 
be  said  that  the  Incarnation,  which  is  a  galaxy  of  tender 
mysteries,  involves  special  devotions  in  its  very  idea,  and 
that  the  gift  of  piety  is  the  telescope  by  which  we  resolve 
this  galaxy  into  clusters  of  constellations  or  into  single 
stars.  Different  devotions  are  connected  with  different 
virtues,  and  have  special  gifts  for  the  attainment  of  those 
most  congenial  to  their  own  spirit.  The  Holy  Ghost  also 
leads  different  souls,  either  by  natural  character  or  super- 
natural attraction,  to  different  devotions,  and  gives  them 
various  lights  upon  them.  Thus  we  have  special  devo- 
tions, and  special  saints  to  further  them,  to  our  Lord's 
Infancy,  His  Boyhood,  His  Active  Life,  His  Passion, 
His  Wounds,  His  Cross,  His  Bisen  Life,  His  Precious 
Blood,  and  His  Sacred  Heart,  to  His  Mother,  His  Angels, 
His  Apostles,  and  the  various  orders  of  His  Saints..     The 


406  THE   TRUE   IDEA   OP   DEVOTION. 

unity  of  our  faith  hinders  the  one-sidedness  of  our  special 
devotions,  and  the  devotions  of  all  the  children  of  the 
Church  may  be  considered  as  one,  full,  harmonious,  and 
for  humanity,  adequate  worship  of  the  most  Holy  Trin- 
ity, made  co-equal  to  the  Infinitude  of  the  Divine  Ma- 
jesty, by  the  Worship  of  the  Word  made  Flesh. 

Such  is  the  account  to  be  given  of  Special  Devotions, 
which  are  as  it  were  developments  of  the  worship  of  the 
Sacred  Humanity  of  the  Eternal  Word.  They  are  es- 
sentially doctrinal  devotions,  and  therefore  we  should 
always  jealously  ascertain  that  they  have  had  the  approval 
of  the  Church.  But,  say  some,  they  change  and  grow, 
and  this  is  a  difficulty.  Certainly ;  let  us  see  what  is  to 
be  said  in  answer  to  it.  I  will  take  the  case  of  devotion 
to  our  B.  Lady  as  affording  the  greatest  difficulty,  as  well 
as  the  one  for  many  reasons  the  most  likely  to  be  felt. 

It  must  be  admitted  then  that  devotions  grow.  His- 
tory is  too  clear  to  allow  of  a  case  being  made  out  on  the 
other  side.  If  devotion  were  not  grounded  on  dogma,  it 
would  be  unreal.  We  have  no  business  to  be  devoted  to 
an  untrue  thing  or  a  fanciful  mystery.  It  would  not 
however  follow  that  because  devotions  grow,  dogma  grows. 
The  two  propositions  are  distinct.  It  is  of  faith  that  our 
Lord  lived  a  given  number  of  years  upon  the  earth,  which 
were  spent  in  such  and  such  a  way.  This  fact  cannot 
grow  out  of  it.  No  one  can  fix  a  limit  to  them.  It  is 
of  course  true  that  each  additional  definition  soon  be- 
comes the  basis  of  special  devotions;  because  definition 
makes  the  truth  plainer  and  surer  to  the  eye  of  love,  and 
devotkms  have  a  marked  partiality  for  articles  of  faith. 
The  mind  and  the  heart  of  the  Church,  her  doctors  and 
uer  people  work  and  move  together;  so  that  devotions 


THE   TRUE   IDEA    OP   DEVOTION.  407 

almost  always  represent  the  turn  theology  is  taking  in 
their  day.  Sometimes  they  run  ahead  of  the  schools; 
sometimes  the  schools  run  ahead  of  them.  The  schools 
and  the  people  are  never  found  very  far  apart.  The  his- 
tory of  the  doctrine  and  devotion  of  the  Immaculate  Con- 
ception is  an  illustration  of  this;  while  the  rise  of  the 
devotion  to  St.  Joseph  is  quite  a  singular  phenomenon  in 
the  history  of  devotions,  because  it  does  not  seem  to  have 
followed  this  rule. 

Now  the  Church  is  pre-eminently  a  soul-saving  institu- 
tion ;  and  doctrine  has  as  much  to  do  with  the  saving  of 
souls  as  sacraments,  jurisdiction,  discipline,  hierarchy, 
and  ceremonies,  or  perhaps  even  more ;  and  devotions  are 
the  application  of  doctrine  to  the  souls  of  the  people.  We 
must  not  lose  sight  of  the  livingness  of  the  Church.  If 
we  do,  then  the  growth  of  devotions  becomes  a  serious 
difficulty,  and  the  art  of  printing  would  have  done  as  well 
as  a  pope.  But  the  Church  is  a  living  soul-saver ;  and 
as  soul-saving  consists,  not  only  in  bidding  souls  come  to 
her  to  be  saved,  but  much  more  in  following  thern  into 
the  wilderness  whither  they  have  wandered,  the  Church 
is,  to  a  certain  extent,  dependent  upon  the  vagaries  of  the 
world  for  her  movements.  So  that  variety,  change, 
adaptation,  and  growth  were  to  be  beforehand  expected 
of  her,  and  are  not  only  not  contrary  to  her  unity,  but 
actually  fruits  of  it.  A  man  is  not  always  in  one  place 
because  he  is  a  soldier,  but  rather  because  he  is  a  soldier 
he  is  successively  in  many  places  serving  his  country. 
He  follows  his  enemy;  the  Church  follows  hers,  to  get 
back  the  plundered  souls.  The  history  of  Canonical 
Penances  and  Indulgences  is  an  example  of  this.  It  also 
■explains  the  Church's  apparent  copying  of  the   World, 


408  THE    TRUE    IDEA   OF   DEVOTION. 

from  time  to  time ;  though  it  is  always  after  a  fashion  of 
her  own.  Her  conduct  at  the  time  of  the  Renaissance  is 
an  illustration  of  it.  This  sort  of  adaptation  of  the  soul- 
saving  Church  to  the  circumstances  in  which  in  each  age 
she  finds  herself,  is  effected  by  the  Holy  Ghost  who  dwells 
in  her,  through  the  medium  of  the  popes,  the  saints  of 
the  day,  and  the  spirit  either  of  old  orders  who  have  kept 
their  fervor,  or  new  ones  which  He  raises  up  to  meet  the 
exigencies  of  the  times. 

The  earliest  special  devotion,  with  a  modern  look  about 
it,  seems  to  have  been  to  the  holy  angels,  which  fills  the 
acts  of  the  martyrs;  and  S.  Gregory's  dialogues  both  re- 
presented the  devotions  of  his  day,  and  propagated  them 
to  future  times,  especially  devotion  to  the  souls  in  pur- 
gatory. Devotions  seem  to  have  become  much  more 
numerous  when  pilgrimages  began  to  be  disused,  and  to 
have  multiplied  proportionately  with  the  liberality  of  the 
Church  in  granting  indulgences.  Moreover,  as  the  Euro- 
pean mind  became  more  subjective,  the  reign  of  mental 
prayer  was  spread  j  and  he  must  think  strangely  either 
of  the  copiousness  of  divine  mysteries  or  of  the  power 
of  human  contemplation,  who  should  be  surprised  that 
eighteen  hundred  years  meditation  on  the  mystery  of 
the  Incarnation  has  contributed,  and  is  forever  contri- 
buting, art  and  poetry  and  devotion  to  the  Christian 
Church. 

The  whole  history  of  the  worship  of  the  Blessed 
Sacrament  is  a  commentary  on  this.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  St.  Gertrude  asked  in  vision 
why  there  was  no  special  devotion  to  the  Sacred  Heart, 
and  St.  John  answered  her  that  its  time  was  not  yet  come. 
It  came  at  last,  through  Margaret  Mary  Alacoque  and 


THE   TRUE   IDEA   OP   DEVOTION.  409 

the  Visitation.  The  devotion  to  th3  Interior  Life  of 
Jesus  arose  in  France,  and  was  part  of  a  reform  of  the 
secular  clergy.  The  devotion  of  the  Precious  Blood  seems 
to  have  begun  with  S.  Catherine  of  Siena,  and  +ook  a 
definite  shape  at  Ferrara.  That  to  the  Immaculate 
Heart  of  Mary  was  French.  That  of  St.  Joseph  began 
among  the  bachelors  of  Avignon.  That  of  St.  John  re 
ceived  a  great  development  in  the  spirit  of  S.  Sulpice. 
The  name  of  Jesus  was  a  Franciscan  devotion.  The 
Month  of  Mary  was  unknown  even  to  S.  Alphonso 
Liguori.  Yet,  when  we  say  that  devotions  begun  at 
such  a  place  or  with  such  a  person,  we  are  speaking  only 
of  the  date  of  their  taking  visible  shape  and  consistency. 
There  were  always  preludes  of  them  in  the  fathers  and 
the  saints.  This  is  especially  the  case  with  the  devotion 
of  the  Sacred  Heart. 

Meanwhile  the  Church  is  not  taken  unawares  by  any 
of  these  things.  Ilather  it  is  she  who  gives  them  out  as 
part  of  her  own  life.  Thus  when  the  Feast  of  the 
Eternal  Father  was  asked  for  in  France,  Benedict  XIV. 
gives  at  length  the  reasons  why  the  Church  was  jealous 
of  this  devotion ;  and  the  reasons  are  exclusively  doctrinal. 
The  devotion  of  the  Slavery  of  Mary  was  condemned 
also  as  unsafe  in  doctrine.  The  devotion  to  our  Lady  in 
the  Blessed  Sacrament,  though  seemingly  countenanced 
by  St.  Ignatius,  met  with  the  same  fate.  The  difficulties 
experienced  by  Juliana  of  Retinue  in  the  case  of  the 
Blessed  Sacrament,  by  the  Venerable  Margaret  Mary  in 
the  case  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  and  by  St.  Bernardino  of 
Siena  with  his  new  devotion  to  the  Name  of  Jesus,  show 
how  jealously  and  sagaciously  the  Church  watches,  and 
35 


410  THE    TRUE    IDEA    OE    DEVOTION. 

curbs,  and  tests,  and  ballasts  new  devotion,  or  new  ex- 
pressions of  an  old  devotion, 

So  it  is  with  devotion  to  our  Blessed  Lady.  As 
Scripture  says,  she  was  to  take  root  in  an  honorable  peo- 
ple ;  and  taking  root  is  a  work  of  time.  Saints  have 
rooted  her,  councils  have  rooted  her,  universities  have 
rooted  her,  monastic  orders  have  rooted  her,  schools  of 
theology  have  rooted  her,  the  eventful  vicissitudes  and 
personal  homage  of  popes  have  rooted  her.  Pius  VII.  at 
Savona  is  repeated  in  Pius  IX.  at  Gaeta.  As  the  world 
got  used  to  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation,  it  hardened 
its  heart  to  its  tenderness;  and  this  devotion,  which  is 
the  very  spirit  of  Jesus,  breathed  over  it,  like  the  moist, 
warm  south  wind  over  the  garden  of  spices.  TheChurch 
has  worked  it  up  inextricably  into  her  whole  system. 
God  has  sanctioned  it  by  revelations,  visions  and  miracles. 
Even  in  the  weary,  thankless,  dusty  toil  of  to-day,  we  are 
greeted  by  Rimini,  and  refreshed  by  La  Saletta.  The 
actual  fruits  of  sanctity  in  the  nineteenth  century  illumi- 
nate the  devotion,  which  was  the  subject  of  prophecy  at 
the  end  of  the  first  century  in  the  inspired  apocalypse. 
We  cease  to  envy  those  who  heard  Mary  proclaimed 
Mother  of  God  at  Ephesus,  since  we  have  heard  our  own 
Holy  Father  of  to-day  infallibly  pronounce  her  Conceived 
Immaculate. 

But  spiritual  books  often  warn  us  against  false  devo- 
tions. What  are  these  ?  There  are  three  classes  of 
false  devotions  ;  those  which  are  wrong  from  being  too 
high  for  the  person  practising  them,  those  which  are  sin- 
gular and  uncommon,  and  those  which  are  too  subtle. 

Those  which  are  wrong  from  being  too  high  for  the 
derson  practising  them  come  sometimes  from  the  tempera- 


THE   TRUE   IDEA  OF  DEVOTION.  411 

ment  of  the  person,  sometimes  from  the  indisoiction  of  a 
director,  and  sometimes  from  a  strong  delusion  of  the 
devil.  They  lead  men  to  force  themselves  iuto  super- 
natural states  of  prayer,  and  to  try  to  suspend  the  use  of 
their  understanding,  and  rest  passively  in  God,  when  they 
are  not  called  to  it  by  Him.  They  consist  in  a  wild,  ur> 
humble,  and  indiscreet  imitation  of  the  saints.  Person? 
addicted  to  them  disdain  common  things,  affect  an  interior 
vocabulary,  and  imitate  the  grandiloquent  language  of  St. 
Denys  and  other  mystics.  Such  persons  are  not  often 
fond  of  the  writings  of  St.  Theresa.  Directors  sometimes 
drive  their  penitents  into  these  false  devotions  by  toe 
hastily  fancying  they  discern  supernatural  signs  upon 
them,  not  sufficiently  attending  to  their  advancement  in 
solid  virtue,  and  too  readily  taking  for  their  full  value  the 
descriptions  such  persons  give  of  their  own  souls.  Such 
coin  must  not  pass  current  for  a  twentieth  part  of  its  nomi- 
nal value. 

Other  devotions  are  false  by  being  singular,  uncommon, 
or  grotesque.  Some  souls  look  with  disrelish  over  a  whole 
host  of  common  devotions,  such  as  the  multitude  of  pious 
Catholics  practise,  and  with  a  sort  of  diseased  instinct 
fasten  upon  some  startling  act  or  word  of  a  saint,  which 
was  either  really  a  mistake  on  his  part  or  a  special  im- 
pulse of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  they  will  proceed  to  found 
upon  it  at  once  some  peculiar  and  odd  devotion  of  their 
own.  There  have  been  instances  of  persons  whose  whole 
prayers  have  been  to  request  God  to  retire  from  them  and 
keep  Himself  in  His  own  grandeur,  which  they  founded 
on  St.  Peter's  words,  Depart  from  me,  0  Lord !  for  1  am 
a  sinful  man.  Yet  these  people  ought  rather  to  have 
besn  climbing  up  sycamore  trees  with  Zaccheus,  to  get  a 


412  THE   TRUE   IDEA  OF  I/EVOTION. 

nearer  view  of  Jesus.  Devotions  founded  upon  the  apoc* 
ryphal  gospels  or  unrecognized  revelations  fall  under  tbi& 
head ;  and  indeed  everything  which  is  foreign  to  the  com- 
mon and  motherly  ways  of  Holy  Church. 

Devotions  which  are  false  from  being  too  subtle  ar« 
those  which  are  founded  on  dubious  theological  opinions, 
Dr  on  the  abstract  conceptions  of  the  schools.  Such  have 
been  certain  devotions  to  the  Attributes  of  God,  not  very 
honorable  to  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  our  Lord.  They 
were  common  among  the  Quietists ;  and  some  may  be  still 
found  in  the  works  of  certain  eminent  French  spiritualists 
of  the  school  of  Bernieres  de  Louvigny.  They  generally 
arise  from  the  activity  of  the  imagination,  and  often  strike 
us  as  beautiful  at  first  sight,  but  without  unction  in  the 
using.  Devotion  must  be  artless,  tender,  simple,  guile- 
less, natural,  spontaneous ;  and  how  can  these  things  be, 
when  the  object  of  them  is  obscure,  abstract,  difficult,  and 
subtle  ?  It  need  hardly  be  added  that  all  devotions  which 
are  false  in  any  of  these  three  ways,  are  very  ruinous  to 
the  soul. 

But  in  devotion  we  have  to  receive  as  well  as  give,  to 
receive  more  than  we  give.  In  truth  from  first  to  last  it 
rather  seems  to  be  mostly  receiving,  and  little  giving 
The  exercise  of  devotion  finds  its  chief  theatre  in  prayer ; 
and  inspirations  are  God's  side  of  prayer.  We  must  not 
always  be  speaking,  we  must  be  listening  also.  We  must 
pause  from  time  to  time,  and  make  all  quiet  in  our  hearts, 
that  we  may  not  lose  the  heavenly  whispers  that  come 
floating  there.  I  am  not  speaking  now  of  extraordinary 
mystical  colloquies,  but  of  what  will  pass  in  the  souls  of 
all  recollected  men  at  prayer.  As  soon,  says  St.  Gregory, 
as  an  inspiration  touches  our  soul,  it  elevate*  it  above 


THE  TRUE   IDEA  OF  DEVOTION.  413 

itself,  represses  the  thoughts  of  temporal  things,  and 
quickens  the  desire  of  things  eternal,  so  that  it  is  deligh;ed 
with  heavenly  things  only,  and  weary  of  earthly;  and 
such  a  height  of  perfection  does  it  communicate  to  the 
soul,  that  it  likens  it  to  the  Holy  Ghost ;  for,  as  Scripture 
says,  What  is  born  of  the  Spirit  is  spirit.  These  inspira- 
tions are  the  actual  impulses  of  the  Holy  Ghost  of  which 
I  spoke  before  j  and  they  may  be  called  the  very  neces- 
saries of  life  to  those  who  are  aiming  at  perfection.  They 
are  wanting  them  nearly  all  the  day  long ;  for  as  it  is  by 
habitual  and  actual  grace  that  we  live  the  life  of  grace, 
obeying  the  commandments  of  God  and  the  precepts  of 
the  Church,  so  it  is  by  the  habitual  gifts  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  His  actual  impulses  and  inspirations,  super- 
added to  grace,  that  we  live  the  lives  of  perfect  men 
and  of  ascetics  who  are  training  for  perfection.  These  in- 
spirations are  not  chance  things,  or  rare,  or  what  are 
technically  called  spiritual  favors.  We  must  beware  of 
confounding  them  with  these.  They  are  our  daily  bread. 
They  are  to  perfection,  what  grace  is  to  virtue.  They 
flow  into  us,  whether  we  hear  and  feel  them  or  not,  in  an 
almost  unintermitting  stream.  Before  we  gave  ourselves 
up  to  God  without  reserve  we  had  them  frequently,  more 
frequently  than  sinners,  who  nevertheless  have  them  very 
often  in  right  of  their  baptism  ;  but  now  they  flow  into  us 
in  an  unintermitting  stream.  One  great  mystical  theolo- 
gian calls  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost  the  seven  sails  of 
the  soul  in  which  it  catches  the  various  breezes  of  inspira- 
tion, and  so  navigates  the  sea  of  perfection. 

The  first  thing  then  to  be  observed  about  these  inspira- 
tions is  what  St.  Thomas  tells  us,  that  all  the  just  have 
a  right  to  ask  for  them  and  to  expect  them,  because  of 
35* 


414  THE   TRUE   IDEA    OP   DEVOTION. 

that  first  infusion  of  the  Seven  Gifts  at  baptism,  whien 
were  communicated  to  them  simply  to  make  them 
capable  of  obeying  and  quick  to  obey  these  very  inspira- 
tions ;  and  that  we  should  especially  ask  for  them  when 
we  are  attempting  the  more  perfect  ways  either  of  the 
active  or  contemplative  life.  This  involves  on  our  part 
continual  prayer  for  them,  a  habit  of  listening  for  them, 
and  an  obligation,  to  be  discreetly  ascertained,  to  obey 
them.  The  second  important  observation  to  make,  is 
that  we  ourselves  cannot  fix  the  time,  place,  exercise  or 
occasions  of  these  inspirations.  They  depend  simply  on 
the  will  of  the  everblessed  Giver,  the  Holy  Spirit  Him- 
self. Dost  thou  know,  said  the  Lord  to  Job,  by  what 
way  the  light  is  spread,  and  the  heat  divided  upon  the 
earth  ?  He  bloweth  where  He  willeth,  and  chooses  His  own 
occasions.  Thus  no  vehemence  of  our  own,  no  straining 
of  our  inward  ear,  will  bring  us  these  inspirations.  We 
must  be  careful  that  our  listening  in  prayer  does  not. 
become  idleness,  or  degenerate  into  a  quietude  to  which 
we  are  not  called.  We  must  not  put  out  force ;  that 
will  only  delay  the  Holy  Spirit.  We  must  use  patience, 
and  wait;  and  patience  will  accelerate  His  coming. 
Nevertheless,  which  is  the  third  thing  to  be  observed, 
there  are  certain  places  where  He  is  wont  to  come,  and 
therefore  where  it  is  wisest  to  wait.  St.  Gregory,  in  his 
Morals,  has  given  us  the  whole  theology  of  inspirations 
so  fully,  and  with  so  much  system  and  completeness,  that 
later  writers  seem  to  have  added  nothing  to  him.  He 
calls  these  means  of  communication  which  the  Holy 
Ghost  vouchsafes  to  use,  the  veins  of  the  whisper  of  God, 
like  the  veins  of  water  which  irrigate  the  earth,  and  tho 
veins  which  distribute  in  all  our  members  the  blocd  of 


THE   TRUE    IDEA    OF   DEVOTION.  41 6 

life.  He  numbers  among  them  prayer,  the  Word  of 
God,  sermons,  spiritual  reading,  and  all  the  exercises  of 
the  contemplative  life.  But  the  richest  veins  of  all  arc 
the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  and  the  Sacrament  of  the  Altar; 
and  thus  the  likeliest  time  and  place  for  these  inspirations 
to  come  are  indicated  to  us. 

But  there  are  four  sources  of  these  inspirations  :  though 
indirectly  they  are  of  course  all  from  God.  The  first 
source  is  God  Himself,  acting  directly  upon  the  soul,  as 
in  the  inspirations  of  .which  I  have  been  speaking.  The 
second  source  is  our  guardian  angel ;  the  third,  conscience] 
and  the  fourth,  love.  Of  the  inspirations  which  come 
direct  from  God,  I  have  already  spoken.  Scripture  speaks 
of  our  guardian  angel  as  a  fountain  of  holy  inspirations ; 
and  indeed,  we  could  hardly  conceive  so  inseparable  a 
companion,  and  so  loving  and  efficacious  a  guide  as  our 
guardian  angel,  not  frequently  communicating  his  mind 
to  ours,  when  we  are  so  often  made  to  feel  against  our 
wills  the  impressions  of  the  minds  of  devils  in  our  almost 
daily  temptations.  Thus  God  says  to  Moses  :*  Behold, 
I  will  send  My  angel,  who  shall  go  before  thee,  and  keep 
thee  in  thy  journey,  and  bring  thee  into  the  place  that 
I  have  prepared.  Take  notice  of  him,  and  hear  his 
voice,  and  do  not  think  him  one  to  be  contemned ;  for  he 
will  not  forgive  when  thou  hast  sinned,  and  My  Name  is 
in  him.  So  Zacharias  says  :  The  angel  that  spoke  in  me 
same  again,  and  he  waked  me,  as  a  man  that  is  wakened 
out  of  his  sleep.  And  I  answered  and  said  to  the  angel 
that  spoke  in  me,  saying,  What  are  these  things,  my  lord? 
And  the  angel  that  spoke  in  me  answered,  and  said  to  me, 
KDOwest  thou  not  what  these  things  are  ?  And  I  said, 
*  Exodus  xxiii. 


H6  THE   TRUE   IDEA   OF   DEVOTION. 

No,  my  lord.  And  he  answered  and  spoke  to  me,  saying 
.  .  .  Then  presently  after  the  vision  changes,  and  the 
prophet  says,  The  word  of  the  Lord  came  to  me.*  So 
when  Elias  fled  from  Jezabel,  the  angel  of  the  Lord 
awoke  him  as  he  slept  under  a  juniper,  and  spoke  to  him 
and  fed  him,  and  gave  him  directions  to  go  to  Horeb,  and 
when  there,  not  the  angel,  but  God  himself  spoke  to  him- 
So  that  the  cases  of  Elias  and  Zacharias  not  only  esta- 
blished the  office  of  the  angel,  but  also  its  relation  to  the 
direct  inspirations  of  God. 

0  with  what  care,  says  S.  Bernard,  quoted  by  Da 
Ponte,  and  with  what  gladness,  the  angels  join  themselves 
to  those  who  sing  psalms,  assist  those  who  pray,  remain 
with  those  who  meditate,  accompany  those  who  contem- 
plate, and  preside  over  those  who  are  occupied  in  active 
business !  For  these  supernal  powers  recognize  their 
future  fellow-citizens,  and  therefore,  with  all  solicitude, 
co-operate  with  those  who  are  to  receive  the  heavenly 
inheritance.  They  rejoice  with  them,  comfort  them, 
guard  them,  foresee  and  provide  for  them,  that  is  for  our- 
selves. Finally,  they  inspire  us  to  pray,  and  mortify  our- 
selves, to  sing  psalms,  and  to  beat  our  cymbals,  for  our 
bodies  which  we  macerate  are  our  cymbals,  that  God  may 
be  pleased  with  the  music  of  prayer,  mingled  with  the 
music  of  mortification.  If  sleep  invades  us  in  these  exer- 
cises, they  arouse  us,  and  say,  Arise  and  hasten,  for  the 
active  life  is  a  long  journey  still  before  you,  and  the  con- 
templative life  still  longer,  if  at  least  you  are  to  go  from 
virtue  to  virtue,  and  see  the  God  of  Gods  in  Sion,  who 
will  recreate  your  spirit,  and  speak  to  your  heart,  and 
unite  you  with  Himself  by  the  thin,  sweet  whispei  of  His 
♦  Zach.  iv. 


THE   TRUE   IDEA   OF   DEVOTION.  417 

inspirations.  0  lofty  angel !  adds  Da  Ponte,  whose  im- 
pulses help  me  so  much  to  receive  these  sweet  inspira- 
tions, assist  me  always,  rouse  me  from  my  torpor,  animate 
my  confidence,  supply  my  infirmity,  so  that  with  thee  for 
my  companion,  I  may  promptly  walk  the  ways  of  morti- 
fication and  prayer,  until  I  come  to  the  mountain  of  God, 
where  I  may  see  Him,  and  enjoy  Him  in  His  glory.* 

The  third  fountain  of  inspirations  is  our  own  conscience. 
Its  office  is  to  tell  us  what  to  pursue,  and  to  warn  us  what 
to  avoid,  and  to  incline  our  will  as  well  as  illuminate  our 
understanding.  Fallen  as  we  are,  St.  Thomas  says  that 
the  virtues  are  natural  to  us,  and  in  a  certain  way  con- 
formable to  the  natural  propensions  of  our  spirit.  The 
inspirations  of  conscience  call  these  propensions  into  play, 
actively  discerning  them  from  under  the  law  of  sin,  the 
sting  of  the  flesh,  and  the  buffeting  angel  of  Satan,  by 
which  they  are  overlaid.  Its  office,  says  Origen,  is  to  call 
the  house,  never  to  sleep,  always  to  be  preaching,  and  to 
sit  like  a  pedagogue  in  the  upper  chambers  of  our  soul, 
and  give  orders.  But  its  inspirations  are  not  only  sugges- 
tive before  action,  but  when  need  requires,  reproachful 
afterwards.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  good  side  of  the  human 
spirit,  and  claims  obedience  by  divine  right. 

The  fourth  fountain  of  inspirations  is  the  stimulus  of 
love.  The  charity  of  Christ  urgeth  us,  saith  the  apostle. 
It  is  of  the  very  nature  of  love  to  quicken  our  perceptions 
of  what  the  object  of  our  love  requires.  Its  docility  is 
equal  to  its  quickness.  An  eye  can  command  it  without 
a  word,  and  a  smile  can  sufficiently  reward  it.  It  is  essen- 
tially inventive,  full  $f  affectionate  wiles,  divining  unex- 

*  Dux  Spiritualis.     Tract  1,  cap.  xxi.,  sect.  2.     I  quote  from  the 
Latin  translation  of  Trevinsius,  not  possessing  the  Spanish. 
2f 


418  THE   TRUE   IDEA   OF   DEVOTION. 

pressed  desires,  prophesying  the  future,  and  thoroughly 
alive  to  every  feature  of  the  present.  When  it  sleeps,  its 
heart  waketh.  So  that  what  with  its  sensitiveness,  and 
what  with  its  delicacy,  and  what  with  its  contagious  near- 
ness to  God  Himself,  it  is  an  independent  fountain  of 
inspirations,  which,  as  human,  are  often  marred  by  indis- 
cretion and  extravagance,  yet  nevertheless,  with  caution 
and  counsel,  are  great  helps  to  perfection.  All  these  four 
kinds  of  inspiration  are,  according  to  their  several  degrees, 
entitled  to  our  obedience.  They  form  as  it  were  the  rule 
under  which  we  live,  filling  the  places  of  superior  and 
subordinate  superiors,  according  to  the  order  and  harmony 
which  is  in  all  the  works  of  God,  and  nowhere  more  than 
in  the  subordinations  of  the  interior  life. 

As  in  the  matter  of  devotion  it  is  important  to  dis- 
tinguish between  inspirations  and  spiritual  favors,  one 
being  of  the  common,  the  other  of  the  uncommon  order, 
so  is  it  also  important  to  distinguish  between  tenderness 
and  spiritual  sweetness,  the  former  being  of  the  common, 
the  latter  of  the  uncommon  order.  These  distinctions 
are  often  overlooked,  which  leads  not  only  to  our  having 
unclean  ideas  in  our  own  mind,  but  to  our  misunder- 
standing and  misapplying  spiritual  books.  Tenderness  is 
the  Christian  feature  of  devotion.  I  am  not  saying  we 
are  not  to  seek  for  spiritual  sweetness  :  that  is  the  question 
for  the  next  chapter  to  consider;  but  we  must  by  all 
means  pray  for  the  impulses  of  the  gift  of  piety,  and  for 
our  inspirations  to  play  upon  that  gift,  because  tenderness 
is  quite  an  essential  in  catholic  devotion.  We  must  pray 
for  tenderness  as  we  pray  for  grace.  We  must  claim  it 
as  we  claim  the  spirit  of  prayer.  It  belongs  to  us,  not 
as  one  of  the  unusual  phenomena  of  the  saints,  but  as 


THE   TRUE   IDEA    OP    DEVOTION.  419 

something  without  which  we  can  neither  pray,  confess, 
nor  communicate,  as  we  ought  to  do. 

I  cannot  illustrate  my  meaning  better,  nor  bring  the 
mind  of  the  Church  more  forcibly  before  you,  than  by 
speaking  of  what  is  called  in  theology  the  gift  of  tears 
I  am  sure  most  persons  will  think  that,  although  it  is  A 
great  and  good  thing  to  have  this  gift,  yet  it  would  not 
come  natural  to  ask  for  it.  But  in  the  collection  of  col- 
lects in  the  Missal,  a  set,  and  those  among  the  most 
beautiful,  are  to  ask  the  gift  of  tears,  which  is  the  chosen 
symbol  of  tenderness.  They  are  as  follows  :  Almighty 
and  most  merciful  God,  who  didst  draw  from  the  rock  a 
fountain  of  living  water  for  Thy  thirsting  people,  draw 
from  the  hardness  of  our  hearts  the  tears  of  compunction, 
that  we  may  be  able  to  bewail  our  sins,  and  through  Thy 
mercy  merit  their  remission.  We  beseech  Thee,  0  Lord 
God,  propitiously  to  look  upon  this  oblation,  and  draw 
from  our  eyes  the  rivers  of  tears  which  may  extinguish 
the  fury  of  the  fires  we  have  deserved.  0  Lord  God, 
mercifully  pour  into  our  hearts  the  grace  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  which  may  enable  us  to  wash  away  our  sins  with 
the  plaintiveness  of  our  tears,  and  through  Thy  bounty 
obtain  the  fruit  of  the  indulgence  we  desire.  It  is  our 
duty,  says  St.  Gregory,  in  the  third  book  of  his 
Dialogues,  to  implore  of  our  Creator  with  profoundest 
plaints  the  gift  of  tears ;  and  the  Catechism  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Trent,  speaking  of  contrition,  says  that  tears  ought 
to  be  desired  and  sought  for  with  the  greatest  care. 
There  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  then  about  the  mind  of  the 
Church. 

In  accordance  therefore  with  her  wish,  spiritual  theolo- 
gians have  treated  systematically  of  this  gift  of  tears 


120  THE   TRUE   IDEA    OP   DEVOTION. 

They  have  divided  tears  into  four  kinds,  natural,  dia 
bolical,  human,  and  divine.  Natural  tears  are  those 
which  proceed  from  constitution,  temperament,  age,  sex, 
and  the  like  causes.  God,  says  one  writer,  has  made  His 
tears  to  rain  both  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust,  that  they 
may  use  them  or  not  for  the  good  of  their  souls.  Such 
tears  have  no  character,  either  for  good  or  evil ;  and  those 
who  have  them  not,  need  not  be  cast  down;  for  the 
physical  expression,  though  sweet  and  helpful,  is  but  the 
outward  manifestation  of  the  inward  tenderness.  Dia- 
bolical tears  are  caused  by  the  devil  acting  through  oui 
minds  on  our  physical  temperament.  Such  were  the 
tears  of  Ismahel,  the  son  of  Nathanias,  of  whom  Jere 
mias  speaks;  and  those  also  of  which  Ecclesiasticus 
says,  An  enemy  weepeth  with  his  eyes;  but  if  he  find  an 
opportunity,  he  will  not  be  satisfied  with  blood.  An 
enemy  hath  tears  in  his  eyes ;  and  while  he  pretendeth  to 
help  thee,  will  undermine  thy  feet.  Such  also  are  the 
tears  of  hypocrites,  who  make  themselves  appear  sad  to 
the  eyes  of  men ;  and  mystical  theologians  remark,  that 
heretics  have  often  had  a  diabolical  gift  of  tears,  in  order 
that  they  may  mistake  this  physical  softness  of  heart  for 
the  tenderness  of  devotion,  and  so  not  find  out  tli.it  they 
have  gone  astray  from  the  true  road  of  interior  piety, 
and  that  those  whom  they  delude,  women  especially,  may 
fancy  their  leaders  are  sainte,  and  that  where  they  are, 
the  Church  must  be  also.  Human  tears  are  those  which 
flow  from  the  human  spirit.  Tears  at  the  loss  of  temporal 
goods,  at  the  breaking  of  earthly  attachments,  or  at 
moving  narratives  and  pathetic  incidents,  these  are  all 
human.  Such  were  the  tears  of  Esau,  when,  as  the 
ipostle  says,  he  found  no  place  for  penance  though  he 


THE   TRUE   IDEA   OP   DEVOTION.  421 

sought  it  with  tears,  because  it  was  the  loss  of  .the  temporal 
benediction,  not  of  the  spiritual  promises,  for  which  he 
wept.  St.  Jerome  says,  that  these  tears  are  signified  by 
Mieheas,  under  the  names  of  the  wailing  of  dragon 
and  the  mourning  of  ostriches.  It  is  plain  that  they  are 
not  holy  in  themselves,  and  many  of  them  nothing  can 
sanctify,  because  an  evil  motive  corrupts  them.  But  who 
would  say  that  the  mother's  tears  for  her  only  son  de- 
parting to  the  horrors  of  the  Crimea,  or  the  long,  silent 
streams  of  the  soldier's  widow,  fructify  not  in  their  souls 
with  the  fruits  of  eternal  life  ?  Surely,  in  the  good,  they 
are  a  kind  of  prayer. 

The  tears  which  are  from  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  which 
we  mean  properly  by  the  gift  of  tears,  are  like  those  of 
Tobias,  to  whom  St.  Raphael  said,  When  thou  didst 
pray  with  tears,  I  offered  thy  prayer  to  the  Lord;  or 
those  of  Ezechias,  to  whom  God  said,  I  heard  thy  prayer, 
and  I  saw  thy  tears ;  and  those  of  our  blessed  Lord,  of 
whom  St.  Paul  says,  that  in  the  days  of  His  flesh,  He 
offered  up  prayers  and  supplications,  with  a  strong  cry 
and  tears,  and  was  heard  for  His  reverence.  They  come 
from  those  unutterable  plaints  with  which  the  Holy  Ghost 
is  making  intercession  in  our  hearts;  and  it  is  their  char- 
acteristic to  clear  the  mind  and  not  to  trouble  it,  to  leave 
the  spirit  not  perturbed,  but  delightfully  and  unspeakably 
serene.  Theologians  distinguish  five  degrees  of  these 
tears,  which  are  more  or  less  perfect.  The  first  degree 
consists  of  those  which  we  shed  over  human  miseries. 
Even  these  may  be  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Such 
were  the  tears  of  Anna,  the  mother  of  Samuel,  of  Tobias, 
jf  Sara  the  daughter  of  Raguel,  and  of  Judith.  The 
tears  of  the  second  degree  flow  from  the  consideration  of 
36 


422  THE   TRUE   IDEA  OF  DEVOTION. 

Bin,  seen  in .  the  light  of  the  divine  compassions.  Such 
were  the  tears  that  David  often  shed,  such  those  of  Mag- 
dalen over  her  Master's  feet,  such  those  of  Peter,  when 
he  rose  from  his  fall.  Tears  of  the  third  degree,  flow 
from  the  compassion  of  Jesus,  and  the  meditation  of  His 
Passion.  Such  were  the  tears  of  Mary  in  her  dolors. 
The  tears  of  the  fourth  degree  arise  from  the  desire  of 
seeing  God,  and  the  intolerable  burden  of  His  absence. 
Such  were  the  tears  of  David,  which  were  his  bread  day 
and  night,  while  his  soul  thirsted  for  the  face  of  the 
strong  and  living  Grod ;  and  the  tears  that  Magdalen  wept, 
when  she  stood  weeping  at  the  sepulchre  because  Jesus 
was  not  there.  The  tears  of  the  fifth  degree  come  from 
an  ardent  love  of  our  neighbor,  and  a  supernatural  sorrow 
for  his  sins  and  his  calamities.  Such  were  the  tears  that 
Samuel  shed  for  Saul,  and  our  Blessed  Lord  for  Lazarus, 
and  over  His  beautiful,  infatuated,  and. dear  Jerusalem. 

It  appears  then  that  these  tears  are  no  slight  help  to 
holiness ;  that  while  they  are  gratuitous,  they  are  never- 
theless to  be  impetrated ;  and  that  it  is  the  mind  of  the 
Church  that  we  should  ask  for  them  with  persevering 
earnestness.  Still  while  we  are  anxious,  our  anxiety  is  to 
be  moderate,  else  it  will  harm  us.  Our  appetite  is  not  to 
be  inordinate,  else  it  is  a  symptom  of  disease.  We  may 
take  complacency  in  our  tears,  yet  we  must  not  be  attached 
to  them.  Neither  must  we  pride  ourselves  upon  them ; 
for  they  are  a  gift.  Still  —  what  think  you,  is  the  mind 
of  the  Church  about  inward  tenderness,  when,  so  unlike 
her  usual  self,  she  would  have  us  even  pray  for  its  exterioi 
«nd  physical  manifestation  ? 


THE  RICIHT    USE   OF    SPIRITUAL   FAVORS.         423 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

TffA   RIGHT   USE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS. 

There  is  no  subject  on  which  the  ancient  and  modern 
traditions  of  the  spiritual  life  are  more  apparently  at 
variance,  than  concerning  the  right  use  of  spiritual  favors. 
Ancient  books  bid  us  seek  after  them,  pray  for  them, 
make  much  of  them ;  while  modern  books  tell  us  to 
shrink  from  them,  to  be  afraid  of  them,  to  be  nervously 
cautious  when  we  have  them,  and  to  pray  rather  to  be 
guided  by  the  common  way  of  faith.  There  is  no  real 
discrepancy  in  this  seeming  contradiction.  It  is  the  same 
tradition  manifesting  itself  differently  under  altered  cir- 
cumstances. But  I  approach  the  subject  with  fear  and 
trembling. 

Our  first  duty  is  to  get  a  clear  view  of  the  question. 
Spiritual  favors  belong  to  what  may  be  called  the  uncom- 
mon order.  Nevertheless,  there  are  two  classes  of  them. 
One  class  consists  of  the  raptures,  extasies,  visions,  locu- 
tions, touches,  wounds,  thirsts,  stigmata,  and  transforma- 
tions which  belong  to  the  saints.  The  second  class 
includes  only  two  things,  spiritual  sweetnesses  and  spiri- 
tual consolations,  which  are  the  frequent  and  often  daily 
gifts  of  the  middle-class  Christians,  that  is,  those  who  rise 
above  mere  precept,  and  walk  by  counsels,  without  enter- 
ing into  the  higher  mystical  world  of  the  saints.  Now 
with  the  first  class  I  have  nothing  whatever  to  do.  Not  a 
word  I  shall  say  will  allude  to  them.    It  may  be  true  that 


424         THE   RIGHT   USE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS. 

the  extatic  state  is,  as  some  theologians  say,  the  naturae 
Btate  of  man ;  that  Adam  was  created  in  it,  and  that  our 
Lord  lived  in  it ;  and  that  the  supernatural  mystical  holi- 
ness works  its  way  more  or  less  imperfectly  back  into  it. 
But  nothing  of  this  is  applicable  to  the  class  of  souls  to 
frhose  interests  this  treatise  is  devoted. 

I  am  writing,  let  me  repeat  it,  for  persons  living  in  the 
world,  yet  nevertheless  aiming  at  perfection,  and  a  disin- 
terested love  of  God.  This  must  be  borne  in  mind 
throughout,  or  else  much  that  is  said  will  inevitably  be 
misunderstood  or  misapplied.  If  any  one  is  so  bold  as  tc 
say  that  perfection  of  any  kind  is  impossible  to  seculars,  he 
must  consider  the  treatise  a  simple  mistake  from  beginning 
to  end.  I  have  no  controversy  with  him,  and  shall  not 
stay  now  to  prove  a  truth,  in  whose  favor  I  have  the  whole 
ascetical  tradition  of  spirited  writers,  and  the  indubitable 
facts  of  many  processes  of  canonization.  Such  a  contro- 
versy would  be  useless  and  hopeless.  For  the  sake,  how- 
ever, of  those  whom  such  wild  inconsiderate  doctrine  may 
trouble,  and  even  hold  back  from  a  generous  love  of  God, 
I  will  quote  from  the  Bollandists  an  anecdote  of  St. 
Catherine  of  Genoa,  while  she  was  living  in  a  Genoese 
palace,  and  in  the  state  of  marriage.  One  day  Fra 
Domenico  de  Ponzo,  a  Franciscan,  hearing  Catherine  speak 
_n  a  ravishing  manner  of  divine  love,  either  from  a  desire 
to  try  her,  or  from  a  wish  to  induce  her  to  embrace  the 
religious  state,  began  to  tell  her  that  in  the  secular  state, 
and  with  the  tie  of  marriage,  the  heart  had  not  liberty  to 
love  God,  and  could  not  love  Him  so  purely,  as  in  the 
religious  state.  So  long  as  the  Friar  contested  nimself 
with  showing  the  undoubted  superiority  of  tb«  religious 
over  the  secular  state,  Catherine  agreed  wi*V  fr»l      but 


THE   RIGHT    USE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS.         425 

when  he  came  to  limit  the  love  of  God  possible  in  the 
secular  state,  she  rose  from  her  seat  with  her  countenance 
all  on  lire,  and  her  eyes  sparkling,  and  said,  If  I  believed 
that  the  habit  which  you  wear,  and  which  it  is  not  in  my 
power  to  put  on,  could  add  the  slightest  spark  to  my  love, 
I  would  snatch  it  off  your  shoulders,  and  tear  it  to  pieces. 
That  your  renunciation  of  everything,  and  your  religious 
state,  may  enable  you  to  acquire  merits  far  superior  to 
mine,  may  be  true;  I  let  it  pass,  and  congratulate  you 
on  your  happiness )  but  you  will  never  make  me  believe 
that  I  cannot  love  God  as  perfectly  as  you.  In  fact,  my 
love  finds  nothing  to  arrest  it,  and  if  it  did,  it  would  cease 
to  be  pure  love.  Then  turning  to  God,  she  cried  out,  0 
my  love  !  who  then  shall  hinder  me  from  loving  thee  as 
much  as  I  please  ?  For  that  end  I  have  no  need  of  reli- 
gious profession.  Were  I  in  a  camp,  in  the  midst  of  sol- 
diers, I  do  not  see  what  obstacle  there  would  be  to  my 
love !  She  then  quitted  the  room,  leaving  the  company 
in  amazement  at  her  heat  and  energy  j  and  retiring  to  her 
own  chamber  to  give  free  course  to  the  vehemence  of  her 
love,  she  cried  out,  0  Love !  who  then  can  hinder  me 
from  loving  Thee  ?  If  the  world,  or  the  state  of  mar- 
riage, or  any  other  thing,  could  hinder  my  love,  how  con- 
temptible it  would  be  !  But  I  know  that  love  overturns 
all  obstacles.  God  was  pleased  to  reward  this  outburst 
by  speaking  an  interior  word  in  her  soul,  assuring  her 
that  no  state  could  hinder  the  perfection  of  love,  and 
effacing  at  once  the  trouble  injected  into  her  mind  by  the 
temerarious  doctrine  of  Fra  Domeuico.* 

*  To  persons  aiming  at  perfection  in  the  world,  I  would  recommend 
a  little  book  published  by  Pelagaud  at  Lyons,  entitled  Pratique  de 
la  Vie  Interieure  a  Pusage  des  gens  du  mo'nde :  and  also  La  Vraio 

86* 


426         THE  EIGHT   USE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS. 

I  confine  myself  therefore  to  the  second  division  of 
gifts,  and  whenever  I  speak  of  spiritual  favors  I  shah 
mean  only  one  or  both  of  two  things,  either  spiritual 
sweetnesses  or  spiritual  consolations,  which,  though  of  the 
uncommon  order  and  gratuitous,  are  the  ordinary  gifts 
not  only  of  the  perfect,  but  of  every  soul  honestly  striving 
after  perfection.  It  is  as  if  they  were  merited  by  our 
having  no  reserves  with  God,  and  followed  as  a  spiritual 
consequence  from  generosity,  although  from  various  causes 
they  are  often  withdrawn  or  suspended. 

Spiritual  sweetness  and  spiritual  consolation  are  in 
reality  two  different  things,  though  they  may  be  often 
spoken  of  together,  because  they  follow  the  same  laws, 
while  they  exhibit  different  phenomena.  Alvarez  de  Paz 
warns  us  to  keep  the  distinction  in  mind.  Spiritual 
sweetness  is  a  grace  from  God,  which  produces  serenity 

PiSte"  au  milieu  du  Monde,  by  M.  Huguet,  a  Marist  Father,  published 
also  at  Lyons,  by  Girard  et  Josserand.  I  should  also  mention  old 
Walter  Hilton's  Treatise  to  a  Devout  Man  of  Secular  Estate,  though 
it  is  not  easy  to  procure.  Even  in  the  Scale  of  Perfection,  addressed 
to  a  cloistered  nun,  he  says  (pp.  21,  22,  London  edition  of  1659), 
"  Worship  in  thy  heart  such  as  lead  active  lives  in  the  world,  and 
suffer  many  tribulations  and  temptations,  which  thou,  sitting  in  thy 
house,  feelest  not  of,  and  they  endure  very  much  labor  and  care,  and 
take  much  pains  for  their  own  and  other  men's  sustenance;  and 
many  of  them  had  rather,  if  they  might,  serve  God  as  thou  dost,  it 
bodily  rest  and  quietness.  And  nevertheless  they,  in  the  midst  of 
their  worldly  business,  avoid  many  sins,  which  thou,  if  thou  wert  in 
their  state,  shouldst  fall  into ;  and  they  do  many  good  deeds  which 
thou  canst  not  do.  There  is  no  doubt  but  many  do  thus;  but  which 
they  be  thou  knowest  not;  and  therefore  it's  good  for  thee  to  worship 
them  all,  and  set  them  all  in  thy  heart  above  thyself  as  thy  betters, 
and  cast  thyself  down  at  their  feet."  It  should  be  remembered  that 
ho  who  wrote  thus  was  a  Carthusian. 


THE   RIGHT   USE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS.         427 

and  tranquility,  no  matter  amid  what  a  tumult  of  passions 
and  temptations  it  has  entered  the  soul.  We  see  a  diffi- 
culty before  us  at  which  our  infirmity  recoils,  but  sweet- 
ness at  once  smooths  it  away,  levelling  the  hills  and  fill- 
ing up  the  vales,  so  that  we  run,  like  a  railroad,  on  an 
easy  level.  A  duty  lies  at  our  door,  for  which  our 
character  has  an  insurmountable  repugnance  j  but  sweet- 
ness surmounts  the  insurmountable,  and  the  repugnance 
vanishes.  When  the  soul  is  hard,  it  softens  it,  and  when 
it  is  indocile,  it  renders  it  tractable.  It  lasts  longer  than 
consolation.  It  abides  out  of  prayer,  even  if  it  comes  in 
it,  and  it  makes  us  affable  to  others,  while  consolation 
sometimes  leaves  us  with  a  temptation  to  irritability. 
Consolation,  on  the  other  hand,  is  as  it  were  a  honey  to 
the  palate  of  the  mind.  It  infuses  delight  and  pleasure 
rather  than  peace  and  tranquillity.  It  attracts  the  soul 
to  itself,  and  then  floods  it  with  spiritual  sensations  of 
the  most  exquisite  delicacy.  It  is  shorter  in  its  duration 
than  sweetness,  but  more  efficacious.  It  does  a  greater 
wor!:  in  a  less  time.  It  belongs  especially  to  prayer ;  but 
it  does  not  usually  come  until  we  are  weaned  from  the 
world,  as  the  manna  did  not  fall  in  the  wilderness  till 
the  meal  of  Egypt  was  consumed.  Thus  sweetness  draws 
nearer  to  tenderness  in  devotion,  though  distinct  from  it, 
while  consolation  touches  more  on  those  high  things  on 
which  I  have  said  I  shall  not  enter.  Both  are  divine, 
but  sweetness  works  in  a  more  human  way,  and  is  less 
masterful  than  consolation.  Having  thus  distinguished 
the  two,  I  shall  henceforth  speak  of  them  under  the 
common  title  of  spiritual  favors;  because,  as  I  said 
before,  while  they  exhibit  different  phenomena  they  follow 


428         THE   RIGHT   USE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS 

the   same   laws,   and    that   is    sufficient  for  my  present 
purpose.* 

I  shall  now  make  some  observations  on  the  following 
points  :  first,  the  office  of  these  spiritual  favors;  secondly, 
the  fruits  of  them  ;  thirdly,  the  necessity  of  them  shown 
by  their  effects ;  fourthly,  the  signs  of  them ;  fifthly,  the 
delay,  denial,  or  suspension  of  them ;  sixthly,  the  way  tc 
obtain  them;  seventhly,  the  right  use  of  them;  and 
eighthly,  the  apparent  discrepancy  between  ancient  and 
modern  books  upon  the  subject.    And  as  I  divide  for  the 

*  The  same  distinction  is  studiously  made  by  Father  Graciano  de 
la  Madre  de  Dios,  in  the  second  part  of  his  Dilucidario  del  Verda- 
dero  Espiritu.  Vol.  ii.  cap.  74.  What  we  should  call  sweetness  he 
names  ternuras,  tendernesses,  and  distinguishes  them  from  alegria 
espiritual,  jubilo,  regozijo,  (mirth)  consolaciones,  embriaguez  (inebri- 
ation), hartura  (satiety).  The  subject  is  also  discussed  by  Padre 
Fraz  Joseph  del  Espiritu  Santo,  a  Portuguese  Carmelite,  in  his 
Cadena  Mystica  Carmelitana.  Colac.  Pri.  Propuesta  i.  Respuesta  v 
The  language  of  the  Spanish  Mystical  writers  is  for  the  most  part 
more  accurate  and  expressive  than  that  of  others.  Thus  the  Italian 
term  liquefazione  is  much  less  full  and  expressive  for  the  particular 
operation  of  grace  which  it  describes,  than  the  Spanish  derretimiento, 
a  rapid  thaw.  Saliendo  assi  de  si  el  alma,  y  como  abriendo  los 
poros  para  atraer  assi  el  bien  amado,  esta  dilatacion,  se  llama  Derre- 
timiento. As  I  am  quoting  Father  Gracian's  Dilucidario,  I  may 
mention,  as  throwing  light  on  what  I  have  said  before  of  the  human 
spirit,  his  commentary  on  those  words  of  Eliu  in  the  book  of  Job 
(cap.  32,)  where  he  speaks  of  his  inward  fervor  "as  new  wine  which 
wanteth  vent,  which  bursteth  the  new  vessels."  He  says  that  when 
pious  persons,  and  especially  beginners,  neglect  their  studies  or  the 
duties  of  their  station  for  devotional  exercises,  it  is  a  common  thing 
to  pay  that  they  are  under  a  delusion  of  the  devil ;  but  in  reality,  he 
observes,  it  is  simply  the  infirmity  of  the  human  spirit,  which  is  often 
inculpable,  as  it  is  as  yet  unused  to  this  "  divine  inebriation  f*  and 
they  who  are  harsh  and  excessive  in  their  condemnation  of  it  run 
the  risk  of  frightening  men  away  from  the  spiritual  life. 


THE   RIGHT   USE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS,         429 

fiake  of  clearness,  so  my  division  will  lead  me  into  occa- 
sional repetition. 

First,  let  us  speak  of  the  office  of  these  spiritual 
favors.  St.  Bonaventure  sums  them  all  up  in  fivti 
things.  They  fill  the  memory  with  holy  thoughts. 
They  give  us  a  vast  intelligence  of  God.  They  inspire 
us  efficaciously  with  conformity  to  His  will.  They  cause 
revsrence  and  composition  of  body  and  outward  demeanor. 
They  lead  us  to  delight  in  hard  work,  and,  if  need  be,  in 
suffering  for  God.  Another  way  of  looking  at  the  matter 
is  this.  If  we  consider  the  nature  of  devotion  and  our 
own  nature,  we  shall  see  that  there  are  in  us  three  im- 
pediments to  devotion,  the  infirmity  of  the  flesh,  which 
caused  the  disciples  to  sleep  in  Gethsemane,  sensuality, 
which  was  the  law  St.  Paul  felt  warring  in  his  members 
against  the  law  of  Christ,  and  the  necessary  cares  of  life, 
which  he  experienced  in  bearing  the  solicitudes  of  all  the 
Churches.  Now  sweetness  and  consolations,  one  with 
another,  remove  these  three  impediments ;  and  God  will 
either  send  them  to  us  without  any  co-operation  of  our 
own,  or  sometimes  to  reward  preceding  efforts  or  present 
fervor. 

Secondly,  the  fruits  of  these  spiritual  favors  rapidly 
make  themselves  manifest  in  the  soul.  The  busy,  noisy, 
populous  memory,  ever  like  a  seething  and  seditious  city, 
becomes  quiet  and  loyal,  and  attends  to  its  manufactures, 
and  keeps  the  feasts  of  Holy  Church  with  an  obedient 
joy.  All  trains  of  thought  which  concern  heavenly 
things  display  a  copiousness  and  exuberance  which  they 
never  had  before.  Meditations  are  fluent  and  abundant. 
The  virtues  no  longer  bring  forth  their  actions  in  pair* 
and  travail,  but  with  facility  and  abundance,  and  their 


430         THE   RIGHT   USE   OF    SPIRITUAL   FAVOReJ. 

offspring  are  rich,  beautiful  and  heroic.  There  are  pro. 
vinces  of  temptations  always  in  discontented  and  smoul- 
dering rebellion.  But  we  have  a  power  over  them  which 
is  new,  and  which  is  growing.  We  have  such  a  facility 
in  difficulties  as  almost  to  change  the  character  of  the 
spiritual  life;  and  a  union  of  body  and  spirit  which  is  aa 
great  a  revolution  as  agreement  and  peace  in  a  divided 
household.  All  these  seven  blessings  are  the  mutations 
of  the  Right  Hand  of  the  Most  High.  Even  to  begin- 
ners, God  often  vouchsafes  to  give  them,  not  merely  as 
sugar-plums  to  children,  as  some  writers  have  strangely 
said,  but  to  do  a  real  work  in  their  souls,  and  enable  them 
to  drive  their  way  through  the  supernatural  difficulties 
proper  to  their  state.  But  proficients  should  ardently 
desire  them,  for  they  fatten  prayer;  and  the  perfect  can 
lever  do  without  them,  as  they  can  never  cease  augment- 
ing their  virtues  and  rendering  the  exercise  of  them 
pleasant.  What  is  the  death-bed  itself  but  an  exercise 
of  virtues,  so  intense  as  to  compress  the  growth  of  ten 
years  into  an  hour  ?  Nay,  even  in  desolations  we  need 
them ;  for  it  is  an  axiom  in  mystical  theology  that  God 
both  desolates  and  consoles  at  one  and  the  same  moment, 
and  by  one  and  the  same  process. 

Well,  therefore,  may  Alvarez  de  Paz  say :  *  "  They  err 
then  who  do  not  magnify  this  spiritual  sweetness,  and  do 
not  thirst  for  it  in  prayer,  and  are  not  saddened,  if  it 
withdraws.  They  show  that  they  have  never  learned  by 
experience  its  manifold  utility.  For  if  they  had  once 
tasted  it,  and  seen  how  by  its  impulse  they  rather  ran  than 
walked,  yea  ind  even  flew  to  perfection,  they  would  indeed 
have  esteemed  that  to  be  precious  which  brings  with  it 
*  De  Inquisitione  Pacis,  ii.  3,  2. 


THE   RIGHT   USE   OF    SPIRITUAL   FAVORS.  131 

bo  great  an  increase  of  virtues  and  purity.  When  it  has 
possession  of  the  heart  even  of  a  beginner  and  an  imper- 
fect man,  it  elicits  actions  which  are  perfect  at  all  points 
(omnibus  numeris  absolutas).  And  if  it  hides  itself  from 
a  man  who  is  advanced  in  virtue  and  already  perfect,  he 
does  not  know  how  to  do  his  ordinary  actions  without 
multifarious  imperfections  during  that  temporary  suspen 
sion.  It  is  not  the  sign  of  a  soft-living  man,  and  an 
effeminate  heart  or  over-delicate  spirit,  to  sigh  after  this 
sweetness;  but  it  is  the  work  of  a  wise  and  strong  man, 
who,  recognizing  his  inborn  infirmity,  desires  that  which 
will  eaable  him  to  run  to  God  with  more  speed  and  with 
greater  agility,  and  to  do  greater  and  more  heroic  deeds. 
He  whose  judgment  is  otherwise  neither  knows  himself 
nor  has  any  ardent  desire  after  perfection,  nor  compre 
hends  the  true  and  solid  riches  of  this  sweetness."  * 

One  of  the  reasons  which  have  induced  some  spiritual 
writers  to  speak  discouragingly  of  consolations  is  their 


*  This  matter  is  of  such  great  importance,  especially  so  far  as 
regards  the  connection  between  spiritual  sweetness  and  the  solidity 
of  virtue,  that  I  cannot  forbear  giving  a  passage  from  Da  Ponte. 
It  is  in  his  life  of  Marina  d'Escobar,  and  as  he  is  not  there  professedly 
treating  of  the  present  matter,  the  passage  shows  how  completely  the 
view  given  in  the  text  was  part  of  his  mind.  He  is  saying  that 
spiritual  favors,  crosses,  and  virtues  are  the  triple  cord  of  the  spiri- 
tual life,  which  Ecclesiastes  says  is  not  easily  broken.  He  gives  this 
reason,  —  Porque  a  los  favores,  y  regalos  sin  las  cruces,  facilmente 
suele  veneer  la  soberbia,  presuncion,  y  vanagloria;  las  cruces,  y 
tormentos,  sin  alivios  de  regalos,  facilmente  despenan  en  impaciencia, 
tedio,  y  pusilanymidad  de  espiritu.  Las  virtude?  sin  Id  mezela  de 
essotras  dos  cosas  nunca  son  solidas,  ni  fuertes,  ni  bien  probadas,  y 
assi  faMlmente  las  vence  lapereza,  y  tibieza  del  corazon  j  pero  quand» 
todas  tres  se  juntan,  hacen  una  santidad  aventajada,  y  eomo  iujpug- 
n»bla —  Vida  Meravilloea.  vol.  I.  Introd.  See*.  IT. 


432         THE    RIGHT    USE    OF    SPIRITUAL    FAVORS. 

laying  us  open  to  delusion.  This  of  course  expresses  ae 
undoubted  truth  of  ascetical  theology.  Yet  I  will  ven- 
ture to  say  that  the  exaggeration,  that  common  bane  of 
spiritual  books,  into  which  some  writers  have  fallen,  haf 
done  far  more  harm  to  the  souls  of  readers  by  the  false 
and  unreasonable  suspicions  it  has  created,  than  even  a 
positive  delusion  of  Satan  would  have  done.  Nay,  this 
diabolical  prudence,  to  use  a  common  expression  of  ascetijs, 
is  itself  a  delusion  of  the  enemy,  and  one  of  his  most  fatal 
and  most  successful  stratagems ;  and  spiritual  books  are 
his  usual  ambuscades.  Let  us  take  a  case  of  the  worst 
kind,  a  case  in  which  the  consolations  have  actually  been 
delusions,  and  let  us  learn  from  the  saints,  both  by  exam- 
ple and  doctrine,  their  heavenly  sagacity  and  enlightened 
moderation.  For  our  example  we  may  take  St.  Catherine 
of  Bologna,  whose  consolations  for  five  years  were  in 
great  measure  delusions,  and  among  them  were  continual 
apparitions  of  our  Blessed  Lord,  as  she  believed,  but 
which  were  in  reality  fictions  of  Satan.  Yet  because  of 
humility  and  obedience,  all  turned  to  her  good  and  to 
her  growth  in  holiness.  Nay,  she  says  she  "drew  great 
profit"  from  her  delusions. 

But  a  saint's  own  example  is  perhaps  less  to  us  than  a 
saint's  teaching  to  souls  more  like  our  own.  Let  us  listen 
then  to  the  great  prophetess  of  Carmel.  St.  Theresa  is 
explaining  the  words  of  the  Pater  Noster,  Lead  us  not 
into  temptation.  She  says  that  those  who  arrive  at  per- 
fection do  not  pray  to  be  delivered  from  those  temptations 
which  consist  in  sufferings  and  combats.  On  the  con- 
trary they  desire,  and  pray  for,  and  delight  in  such  trials, 
as  soldiers  wish  for  war,  because  they  know  how  great 
is  the  profit  which  they  will  derive  from  them.     "They 


THE   RIGHT   USE   OP   SPIR/TUAL   FAVORS.         433 

are  never  much  afraid  of  open  enemies What  they 

dread,  and  ought  to  dread  continually,  and  beg  our  Lord 
to  be  delivered  from,  are  traitorous  enemies,  certain  de- 
mons who  transform  themselves  into  angels  of  light,  and 
come  disguised.  These  are  not  found  out,  until  they 
have  done  great  harm  to  the  soul :  but  they  keep  suck- 
ing the  very  blood,  and  destroying  the  virtues,  and  we 
are  in  the  very  midst  of  the  temptation  without  knowing 
it.  It  is  from  them  that  we  must  pray  the  Lord  to 
deliver  us/'  Now,  after  the  Saint  has  thus  distinctly 
pointed  out  the  mischief  these  transfigured  demons  may 
do  us,  mark  what  follows.  "  Observe,  that  there  are 
many  ways  in  which  they  do  injury,  and  do  not  think 
that  it  is  only  by  making  us  believe  that  the  false  conso- 
lations and  delights,  which  they  can  produce  in  us,  are 
from  God.  This  seems  to  me  the  least  part  of  the  harm 
which  they  can  do :  nay,  rather,  it  may  happen  that  they 
thereby  cause  the  soul  to  advance  more  rapidly  ;  for  with 
the  bait  of  these  consolations  it  continues  more  hours  in 
prayer  ;  and  not  knowing  that  they  come  from  the  devil, 
and  seeing  itself  unworthy  of  such  delights,  it  will  never 
cease  giving  thanks  to  God;  it  will  feel  under  greater 
obligations  to  serve  Him,  and  it  will  make  more  efforts 
to  dispose  itself  in  order  that  it  may  receive  still  greater 
favors  from  our  Lord,  since  it  believes  that  they  proceed 
from  Sis  Hand.  Always  follow  after  humility.  Keep 
in  view  that  you  are  unworthy  of  these  favors,  and  strive 
not  after  them.  If  this  is  done,  in  my  opinion  the  devil 
loses  in  this  way  many  souls,  whom  he  hopes  to  ruin, 
and  the  Lord  brings  our  good  out  of  the  evil,  which  Satan 
endeavors  to  do  us.  For  His  Majesty  looks  to  our  in- 
tention, which  is,  ti  please  and  serve  Him,  when  we  are 
37  20 


434         THE   RIGHT    tJSE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS. 

with  Him  in  prayer;  and  the  Lord  is  faithful.  It  is 
right  to  walk  carefully,  that  there  may  be  no  flaw  in 
humility  through  some  vainglory,  and  to  entreat  our  Lord 
to  deliver  you  in  this  peril.  Fear  not,  my  daughters, 
that  His  Majesty  will  allow  you  to  receive  many  consola* 
tions  from  any  one  but  Himself."* 

So  in  a  like  spirit  St.  Teresa  says,  that  it  is  a  false 
humility,  to  reject  from  a  fear  of  vain-glory  the  superna- 
tural gifts  and  consolations  which  God  bestows  on  faith- 
ful souls  in  prayer.  For  since  we  see  that  they  are  gifts, 
and  that  we  in  no  way  deserve  them,  they  only  serve  to 
excite  in  us  an  intenser  love  of  the  Giver.  "  It  seems 
to  me,"  she  adds,  "impossible  according  to  the  constitu- 
tion of  our  nature  for  any  one  to  have  courage  for  great 
undertakings,  who  does  not  perceive  that  he  is  favored  by 
God.  For  we  are  so  miserable  and  so  inclined  to  things 
of  the  earth,  that  we  shall  be  ill  able  to  abhor  in  very 
deed  and  with  great  detachment  all  things  here  below, 
unless  we  see  that  we  have  some  pledge  from  above  :  since 
it  is  with  these  gifts  that  the  Lord  bestows  on  us  the 
strength  which  we  lost  by  our  sins.  It  will  be  a  hard 
matter,  too,  for  us  to  desire  to  be  held  in  displeasure  and 
abhorrence  by  all,  as  well  as  to  aim  at  all  the  other  great 
virtues  which  the  perfect  possess,  if  we  have  not  some 

*  The  saint's  words  in  the  passage  in  Italics  are  as  follows :  Este 
me  parece  el  menos  dano  en  parte  que  ellos  pueden  haeer,  antes 
podrd  ser  que  con  esto  hagan  caminar  mas  apriesa,  porque  cehados 
de  aquel  gusto,  estan  mas  horas  en  la  oracion ;  y  como  ellos  estan 
ignorantes  que  es  el  demonio,  y  como  se  ven  indignos  de  aquellos 
regalos,  no  acabaran  de  dar  gracias  a  Dios  :  quedaran  mas  }bligado? 
a  servirle :  esforzarse  han  a  disponerse,  para  que  les  haga  mas  mer- 
eedes  el  Senor,  pensando  son  de  su  mano.  Camino  ie  Perfection, 
tap.  xxxviii 


THE  RIGHT   USE   OP   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS.         435 

pledge  of  the  love  which  God  beais  us,  and  wilh  it  a 
lively  faith.  For  we  are  by  nature  so  dead  that  we  fol- 
low after  what  we  see  before  us,  and  hence,  these  very 
favors  are  tLe  means  of  arousing  our  faith  and  of  strength- 
ening it.  Perhaps,  indeed,  it  is  I,  who  am  so  vile,  that 
am  judging  of  others  by  myself;  and  there  may  be  per- 
sons who  need  no  more  than  the  truth  of  the  faith  in 
order  to  perform  works  of  great  perfection,  whereas  I,  as 
I  am  so  miserable,  have  had  need  of  everything."  * 

Of  course  we  must  not  run  into  the  other  extreme,  and 
offend  against  the  moderation  of  the  saints,  on  the  sub- 
ject of  these  sweetnesses  and  consolations.  St.  John  of 
the  Cross  makes  the  best  road  to  the  summit,  indeed  the 
only  one  to  the  topmost  peak,  of  his  Carmel,  straight  and 
narrow,  the  way  of  pure  faith  and  the  absence  of  sensible 
consolations.  But  on  the  other  hand,  he  gives  us  another 
road,  tortuous  but  upward,  on  which  he  writes  the  words 
Science,  Counsel,  Sweetness,  Security,  Glory;  and  to 
this  he  gives  the  name  of  the  Way  of  the  Imperfect  Spi- 
rit, with  these  two  mottoes,  "Because  I  took  pains  to 
procure  these  (consolations)  I  had  less  than  I  should  have 
had  if  I  had  ascended  by  the  straight  path/'  and,  "I 
went  slower,  and  gained  a  less  elevation,  because  I  did 
not  take  the  straight  path.'7  From  this  doctrine  what 
other  inference  can  be  drawn  than  that  the  highest  per- 
fection is  in  the  renunciation  of  these  gifts,  but  that  there 
is  also  a  perfection  which  seeks  them,  and  a  perfection 
too  by  which  the  tops  of  Carmel  may  be  scaled  ?  It  will 
be  well  indeed  for  most  of  us  if  we  can  mount  to  perfec- 
tion at  all,  even  by  the  less  perfect  road.  But  the  fol- 
lowing passage  of  St.  Theresa  will  put  both  sides  of  the 
*  Vida,  cap.  x. 


486        THE   RIGHT    USE  OE   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS. 

question  before  us  at  once,  and  with  a  clearness  whick 
precludes  the  necessity  of  comment. 

"  It  is  most  worthy  of  note,  and  I  say  it  because  I 
know  it  by  experience,  that  the  soul  which  begins  to 
travel  along  this  way  of  mental  prayer  with  determination, 
and  can  bring  itself  not  to  care  much  or  to  be  much 
elated  or  cast  down,  because  these  delights  and  tender- 
nesses are  wanting,  or  because  the  Lord  bestows  them, 
has  already  accomplished  great  part  of  the  journey. 
There  is  no  fear  of  such  a  one  turning  back,  however 
much  he  may  stumble,  because  the  building  is  being 
begun  on  a  firm  foundation.  For  the  love  of  God  con- 
sists not  in  having  tears,  or  in  these  delights  and  tender- 
nesses, which  we  desire  for  the  most  part  on  account  of 
the  consolation  which  we  receive  from  them,  but  in 
serving  Him  with  justice  and  strength  of  mind,  and 
humility.  The  other  seems  to  me  more  like  receiving 
and  giving  nothing  ourselves.  For  poor  women,  such  as 
me,  weak  and  without  strength,  there  appears  to  me  a 
suitableness,  in  my  being  led  as  (God  is  now  doing  with 
me)  by  consolations;  in  order  that  I  may  be  able  to 
support  certain  labors  which  it  has  pleased  His  Majesty 
that  I  should  have :  but  for  the  servants  of  God,  men  of 
weight,  learning,  and  understanding,  whom  I  see  make 
so  much  ado  because  God  does  not  give  them  devotion,  it 
disgusts  me  to  hear  of  it.  I  do  not  say  that  they  should 
not  accept  it,  if  God  gives  it  them,  and  esteem  it  highly, 
since  in  that  case  His  Majesty  sees  that  it  is  suitable :  but 
when  they  have  it  not,  they  should  not  distress  them- 
selves :  and  they  should  understand  that  it  is  not  neces- 
sary, inasmuch  as  his  Majesty  does  not  give  it,  and  they 
should  be  masters  of  themselves.     Let  them  believe  that 


THE   RIGHT   USE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS.         437 

it  is  a  fault :  I  have  proved  it  and  seen  it.  Let  them  be- 
lieve that  it  is  an  imperfection,  and  that  they  are  not 
walking  with  liberty  of  spirit,  but  that  they  will  find 
themselves  weak  in  what  they  undertake. 

u  I  do  not  say  this  so  much  for  beginners,  though  I  lay 
such  stress  upon  it,  since  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance 
for  them  to  begin  with  this  liberty  and  determination : 
but  I  say  it  for  others,  and  they  are  many,  who  have 
begun  and  never  could  succeed  in  finishing:  and  the 
reason  of  this,  I  believe  to  be  in  a  great  measure  that 
they  have  not  embraced  the  cross  from  the  beginning. 
They  are  ever  in  affliction  because  it  seems  to  them  that 
they  are  doing  nothing ;  when  the  understanding  ceases 
to  operate,  they  cannot  endure  it :  and  yet  perchance  this 
is  the  very  time  when  the  will  is  growing  stout,  and  ac- 
quiring strength,  though  they  perceive  it  not."* 

Thirdly,  emboldened  by  the  doctrine  of  Alvarez  de 
Paz,  I  will  go  on  to  say  that  some  measure  of  these  spiri- 
tual favors  is  necessary,  and  that  the  necessity  may  be 
shown  by  their  effects.  Can  we  do  withont  fervor,  which 
it  is  their  special  office  to  produce  ?  Are  not  copious  and 
tender  affections,  something  more  than  a  help  to  us  in 
prayer?  Do  we  not  actually  measure  our  growth  in 
holiness  by  our  facility  in  the  exercise  of  virtues  ?  Shall 
we  persevere  in  mortifying  ourselves,  if  we  do  not  at  last 
come  to  love  mortifications?  We  are  full  often  in 
absolute  need  of  something  more  than  their  own  light  to 
be  thrown  on  the  truths  of  faith.  Even  to  preserve  re- 
verence, mysteries  must  sometimes  be  compelled  by  pres- 
sure to  give  out  the  savory  taste  and  the  recreating  odor 
they  contain.  Worldliness  is  a  wide  thing  with  an  ob- 
•  Vida,  o.  xi. 

37* 


438         THE   RIGHT   USE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS. 

stinate  life,  and  it  sometimes  bursts  out  oven  in  a  chvout 
soul  like  a  devouring  conflagration.  Nothing  can  ex 
tinguish  it  but  an  abundance  of  spiritual  sweetness.  A 
drunken  man  dares,  what  a  sober  man  will  not  dare,  from 
a  leap  out  hunting  to  higher  things.  So  in  the  spiritual 
life  we  have  many  a  leap  to  take  in  the  darkness  of  faith, 
which  we  never  should  take  were  we  not  inebriated  with 
divine  love  and  the  wine  of  spiritual  consolations.  Dis- 
cretion is  indispensable  to  the  spiritual  life ;  but  the  deli- 
cacies of  it  are  never  found  apart  from  the  serenity  of 
spiritual  sweetness.  This  is  the  reason  S.  Ignatius  tella 
us  never  to  decide  on  anything  in  times  of  dryness  and 
desolation.  Now  look  at  these  nine  wants.  Are  they 
not  absolute  wauts  to  the  spiritual  man  ?  And  what  are 
their  satisfactions  but  the  nine  effects  of  spiritual  favors  ? 
If  you  please,  we  may  look  at  it  in  Da  Ponte's  way. 
He  says  that  when  we  give  ourselves  up  to  God  and  aim 
at  perfection,  we  labor  under  two  necessities.  Observe, 
he  calls  them  necessities.  The  first  is  perseverance  in 
prayer,  and  the  second  is  perseverance  in  mortification ; 
and  he  adds  that  it  is  quite  hopeless  for  us  to  dream  of 
persevering  in  either  of  them  without  spiritual  favors. 
According  to  his  doctrine,  God  shows  us  this  by  the  very 
seasons  which  He  usually  selects  as  the  times  of  His 
visitations,  which  are  times  of  prayer,  times  of  mortifica- 
tion, times  of  sorrow,  times  of  dryness,  and  times  of  dis- 
traction. But  hear  two  of  the  great  fathers  of  the  Church. 
St.  Gregory  says,  I  will  go  to  the  mountain  of  myrrh  and 
the  hill  of  frankincense.  What  is  the  mountain  of  myrrh, 
but  lofty  and  solid  mortification  ?  And  what  is  the  hill 
of  frankincense,  but  great  humility  and  prayer?  It  is 
Iben  that  the  Spouse  comes  to  this  mountain  and  hillf 


THE   RIGHT    USE    OF    SPIRITUAL    FAVORS.         439 

when  He  familiarly  visity  those  whom  He  sees  striving 
to  mount  on  high  by  the  mortification  of  their  vices  and 
distractions,  and  to  smell  sweetly  of  pure  and  lowly 
prayer.  And  what  comes  of  this  visitation  except  that 
the  just,  like  trees  of  myrrh  and  frankincense  planted  on 
this  mountain  and  hill,  distil  their  precious  liquors  in 
greater  abundance  and  excellence,  while  they  exercise 
higher  and  more  fervent  affections  of  mortification  and 
prayer  ?  This  is  what  the  soul  herself  felt  when  she  said, 
Come,  0  south  wind,  blow  through  my  garden,  and  let 
thea  romatical  spices  thereof  flow,  that  is,  the  odoriferous 
dew  of  the  tears  which  flow  from  our  eyes.  By  this  the 
soul  signified  that  the  visitation  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  which 
is  represented  by  the  moist  and  warm  south  wind,  was 
necessary  (necessaria)  to  soften  the  heart  that  it  might 
bring  forth  abundantly  the  tender  affections  of  devotion, 
the  eye  sweet  tears,  and  the  hands  fervent  works.  For 
that  visitation  is  nothing  else  than  the  choicest  myrrh 
which  drops  from  the  hands  of  the  Spouse.* 

St.  Bernard,  that  saint  in  whom  antiquity  so  suddenly 
puts  on  a  modern  look,  thus  describes  the  unfortunate 
predicament  in  which  the  heart  is  placed  from  which 
these  spiritual  favors  have  been  withdrawn.  "  From  this 
proceeds  the  barrenness  of  my  soul  and  the  lack  of  devo- 
tion which  I  feel.  Hence  it  is  that  my  heart  is  dried  up, 
and  my  soul  like  a  land  without  water.  I  cannot  shed 
tears.  I  can  find  no  savor  in  the  Psalms.  I  have  n 
pleasure  in  reading  good  books.  Prayer  does  not  recreate 
me.  The  door  is  not  opened  to  meditation.  I  am  lazy 
in  work,  sleep  at  my  vigils,  prone  to  anger,  obstinate  in 
my  dislikes,  free  in  my  tongue,  and  unrefrained  in  mjf 
*  S.  Greg,  in  loc. 


440        THE   RIGHT    USE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS. 

appetite.  Alas  for  me !  for  the  Lord  visits  the  mountains 
which  are  round  about  me,  but  He  comes  not  near  to  me. 
Am  I  then  one  of  the  hills  over  which  the  Spouse  leaps  so 
as  not  to  touch  it  ?  For  I  see  one  man  singular  in  his  gift 
of  abstinence,  and  another  admirable  for  his  patience. 
One  has  extasies  in  contemplation,  another  penetrates 
heaven  by  the  importunity  of  his  intercessions.  Others 
excel  in  various  virtues,  as  mountains  that  the  Lord  visits, 
and  on  which  the  Spouse  of  holy  souls  leaps  and  exults. 
But  I  miserable,  who  feel  none  of  these  things,  what  am 
I  but  one  of  those  mountains  of  Gelboe  from  which,  for 
my  sins,  the  Lord  has  turned  aside,  when  He  compassion- 
ately visited  the  others  ?  Wherefore,  my  soul,  you  ought 
to  tremble,  when  you  feel  the  grace  of  this  divine  vis- 
itation taken  from  you.  In  that  failing,  you  will  fail, 
and  whatever  good  you  have  will  fail  with  you."  It 
seems  then  to  be  the  doctrine  of  the  saints  that  these 
spiritual  favors,  I  speak  of  consolations  and  sweetnesses, 
are  not  ornaments  and  crowns,  but  are  to  be  numbered 
among  the  necessary  vital  forces  of  the  spiritual  life. 

Fourthly,  we  have  to  consider  the  signs  of  these 
spiritual  favors.  Some  are  premonitory  warnings  of 
God's  coming,  and  some  are  tokens  of  His  actual  presence 
in  the  soul;  and  it  is  of  no  little  consequence  to  be 
acquainted  with  both  these  classes  of  symptoms.  The 
premonitory  warnings  of  God's  coming  are  five  in 
number.  Sometimes,  without  any  cause  of  which  we 
can  take  cognizance,  an  instinct  awakes  in  our  soul  tc 
expect  God,  an  impulse  to  get  ready  for  His  coming.  It 
causes  no  inward  perturbance,  though  it  is  a  surprise; 
neither  does  it  throw  us  into  any  confusion,  though  it* 
fjret  effect  is  to  deepen  our  reverential  fear      At  othei 


THE   RIGHT   USE    OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS.         441 

times  we  feel,  without,  anything  either  in  our  inward  dis- 
positions or  external  occupations  to  account  for  it,  interior 
admonitions  to  sanctify  ourselves,  to  make  acts  of  contri- 
tion, to  go  to  confession,  or  suddenly  to  turn  our  attention 
with  considerable  vivacity  upon  some  particular  venial 
sins.  We  feel  and  act  as  if  we  were  on  the  eve  of  some 
great  feast.  '  Or  again  we  feel  wrapped  in  a  delightful 
peace.  The  peace  may  have  been  sudden,  as  in  a  school- 
room when  the  master's  step  is  heard,  or  it  may  have 
deepened  gradually  till  it  became  sensible.  Or  like 
sudden  appetites  which  come  on  us,  we  all  at  once  are 
aware  of  an  unusual  hunger  after  justice  and  holiness,  as 
if  there  was  some  void  in  our  soul  which  we  were  aching 
to  fill.  Or  again  we  are  sensibly  possessed  with  an 
intense  and  very  humble,  but  also  very  efficacious,  desire 
to  be  more  pure,  in  order  to  win  God  down  to  us ;  for  we 
know  that  pure  souls  are  His  magnets  and  attract  Him. 
This  last  is  considered  to  be  in  most  cases  quite  the 
immediate  precursor  of  our  Lord.  He  comes  swiftly 
then,  as  to  Mary  the  moment  her  beautiful  Fiat  was  pro- 
nounced. He  comes  to  exhort,  to  teach,  to  console,  to 
reprove,  yet  to  reprove  so  lovingly  that  a  divine  reproof  is 
a  thousand  times  sweeter  than  earth's  best  consolation. 

There  are  also  five  signs  of  God's  actual  presence  in 
the  soul,  for  the  purpose  of  dispensing  His  spiritual 
favors.  The  first  is  a  sudden  breadth  of  mind,  as  if  walls 
had  been  thrown  down  and  we  saw  far  away  over  immense 
and  various  landscapes,  all  lying  with  the  most  gorgeous 
golden  sunshine  upon  them.  The  second  is  an  outbreak 
of  torrents  of  thoughts  and  affections,  as  if  at  once  the 
windows  of  heaven  had  been  opened  and  the  fountains 
pf  the  great  deep  broken  up  as  at  the  deluge      The  third 


442        THE   RIGHT   USE    OF   SPIRI1UAL   FAVORS. 

is  a  clear  apprehension  of  heavenly  things,  as  if  we  saw 
exactly  how  the  heavenly  court  is  arranged,  and  what  are 
the  eternal  occupations  of  the  blessed,  and  as  if  we  too 
were  put  in  momentary  possession  of  their  feelings  about 
earth  and  the  things  of  earth.  The  fourth  is  a  feeling 
as  if  devotion  were  feeding  us  with  substantial  food,  so 
solid  does  it  seem  to  be,  and  such  conscious  vigor  and 
strength  is  it  pouring  into  every  faculty  of  our  soul,  and 
perhaps  even  into  the  tired  limbs  of  our  body.  The  fifth 
is  a  fastidious  contempt  of  the  world,  which  makes  us 
turn  with  sick  hearts  and  weary  eyes  from  every  manifes- 
tation and  development  of  it.  It  is  like  learning  the 
treachery  and  meanness  of  a  friend.  From  that  moment 
fresh  attachment  seems  an  impossibility.  Any  one  or 
more  of  these  signs  is  a  token  to  us  of  a  divine  visitation. 

It  should  be  observed  also  that  the  manner  of  God's 
entry  into  the  soul  is  twofold.  Sometimes  He  arrives  in 
the  upper  part  of  the  soul,  and  thence,  like  dew,  He 
insinuates  His  sweetness  gradually  all  through  us,  even 
to  our  bodies.  At  other  times  He  arrives  in  the  lowest 
depths  of  our  soul,  and  breaks  upward  like  a  crystal  bub- 
bling fountain,  which  fast  inundates  us  till  we  overflow. 
The  first  method  seems  to  concentrate  us  in  Him ;  the 
second  to  make  us  spread  ourselves  out  in  love  and  works 
of  mercy  towards  others.  The  last  is  more  the  method 
of  sweetness,  the  first  the  method  of  consolation,  were  it 
not  that  God  comes  as  He  wills,  and  will  not  be  bound 
by  systems. 

Fifthly,  we  have  to  consider,  still  following  in  the  track 
of  the  old  spiritual  masters,  the  reasons  we  may  reverently 
venture  to  find  for  God's  denying,  delaying,  or  suspend- 
ing these  spiritual  favors.     St.  Gregory  says,  that  it  is 


THE   RIGHT   USE    OF   SPIRITUAL  FAVORS.         443 

lest  we  should  think  these  gifts  come  from  our  owu  na- 
ture, were  our  own  inheritance,  or  were  due  to  us  by  any 
title  of  justice.  We  cannot  be  kept  in  too  complete  a 
dependence  upon  God,  and  the  occasional  subtractions  of 
the  divine  favors  admirably  effect  this.  At  other  times 
He  does  it  to  increase  our  appreciation  of  His  favors,  to 
make  us  desire  them  more  spiritually,  and  to  long  for 
His  return  more  fervently,  treating  us,  says  St.  John 
Climacus,  as  a  mother  does  her  sucking  child.  Another 
reason  is  that  we  may  humble  ourselves  and  lay  His 
absence  to  the  charge  of  our  own  sins,  to  our  ingratitude, 
our  negligence,  our  want  of  humility,  and  especially  our 
want  of  reverence  in  our  way  of  receiving  Him  when  He 
comes :  or  it  may  be  to  caution  us  against  vanity  and  too 
great  a  complacency  in  ourselves,  as  if  His  favors  were 
attestations  of  our  sanctity,  instead  of  excesses  of  His 
mercy.  Sometimes  the  weakness  of  our  bodily  constitu- 
tion makes  it  necessary  for  Him  to  withdraw  His  favors 
for  awhile,  lest  our  health  should  give  way  under  the 
application  to  divine  things  which  they  cause  in  us,  or  we 
should  lose  our  sleep  and  appetite,  and  so  be  unable  to  go 
through  the  duties  of  our  office  or  station  in  life.  Some- 
times He  foresees  that  we  shall  be  so  allured  by  the  sensible 
sweetness  of  His  favors  if  He  continues  them,  that  we 
shall  be  guilty  of  an  indiscreet  excess,  as  children  make 
themselves  sick  by  eating  sweets;  and  so  a  reaction  would 
come  over  us;  and  a  spiritual  languor,  nausea,  and  un- 
profitable idleness  would  take  possession  of  us.  Some- 
times He  suspends  His  favors  because  we  begin  to  have 
a  repugnance  to  our  external  work  and  the  assistance  of 
our  neighbor,  and  to  perform  our  obligations  in  a  ver^ 
perfunctory  way,   because   we   affect  the   sweetness  and 


444         THE   RIGHT   USE   OF    SPIRITUAL   FAVORS. 

solitude  of  this  divine  intercourse.  For  while  it  lasts,  it 
mostly  abstracts  the  soul  from  other  things,  and  altogether 
possesses  it. 

At  other  times  He  withdraws  to  give  us  the  opportunity 
of  exercising  true  and  solid  virtues  by  turning  His  pre- 
vious visitations  to  account.  For  solid  virtues  are  found 
in  God  only,  not  in  his  sweetnesses  and  consolations.  So 
that  if  the  sweetness  lasted  we  should  not  know  our- 
selves as  we  ought  to  do,  and  we  might  mistake  for  our 
own  activity  what  wag  in  reality  the  energy  of  His  sweet- 
ness. Again,  He  delights  to  see  us  laboring  on  without 
the  succors  of  His  sensible  favors,  because  it  is  an  image 
to  Him  of  His  own  ever-blessed  Passion,  and  because  it 
is  then  we  are  winning  the  brightest  crowns  for  ourselves. 
Furthermore,  He  would  have  us  expert  in  the  spiritual 
life,  and  proved  with  a  diversity  of  trials,  that  we  may 
know  how  to  bend  over  the  oar  in  a  calm,  as  well  as  shake 
out  our  sails  to  the  wind  in  a  breeze.  Sometimes  He 
would  advance  us  all  at  once  in  heroic  humility,  or  give 
us  our  purgatory  here  for  some  infidelity,  or  burn  and  eat 
away  certain  spots  of  sin,  by  some  most  grievous  derelic- 
tion, such  as  Job  had  when  he  cried  out,  Thou  wilt  take 
me  as  a  lioness,  and  returning  Thou  tormentest  me  won- 
derfully. Sometimes  He  sees  in  us  that  common  fault, 
a  want  of  esteem  of  grace,  and  He  comes  and  goes,  that 
by  a  comparison  of  our  two  states  we  may  measure  at 
once  our  own  imbecility  and  the  efficacy  of  grace.  Into 
the  deeper  mysteries  of  dryness  and  desolation  I  need  not 
enter.  They  would  not  be  practical  to  those  for  whom  I 
write. 

Generally  speaking  the  abundance  of  divine  favors  de- 
pends on  our  proficiency  in  the  spiritual  life.     Gerson,  in 


THE   RIGHT   USE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS.         446 

his  Mountain  of  Contemplation,  remarks  that  there  are 
three  reasons  of  favors,  which  resemble  three  seasons  of 
the  year.  The  state  of  beginners  is  the  winter,  when  the 
sun  is  hidden  from  us  by  clouds  and  fogs,  and  the  cold  is 
great,  and  the  rain  frequent,  though  the  sun  sometimes 
shines  and  the  days  are  occasionally  smiling.  For  in 
their  beginnings  they  have  to  sustain  great  obscurities, 
the  relics  of  their  past  lives,  and  the  contradiction  of  still 
unmodified  passions;  yet  God  sometimes  visits  them  and 
shows  them  His  glad  and  beneficent  countenance.  So 
far  was  that  great  master  of  mystical  theology  from  think- 
ing spiritual  sweetness  merely  a  bait  for  children  in  holi- 
ness. Those  who  have  made  some  progress  in  prayer 
live  in  a  kind  of  early  spring.  They  have  a  greater 
variety.  On  one  day  the  sky  is  clear  and  serene,  the 
next  it  is  cloudy  and  rainy.  Yet  the  sun  often  makes 
his  appearance.  So  the  Sun  of  justice  frequently  visits 
the  proficients,  and  indulges  them,  and  gives  them  sen- 
sible tokens  of  His  presence,  and  leaves  with  them  the 
odoriferous  flowers  of  fervent  desires.  Nevertheless  He 
withdraws  Himself  from  them,  so  that  a  little  while  they 
see  Him,  and  again  a  little  while  and  they  do  not  see 
Him ;  in  order  that  this  variety  may  increase  their  hunger 
and  appetite  for  Him,  and  make  them  prepare  themselves 
so  as  to  retain  Him  longer  when  He  visits  them.  The 
perfect  live  in  summer,  when  the  rays  of  the  sun  are 
more  ardent,  and  fewer  clouds  pass  over  his  face;  yet 
there  are  occasional  storms,  thunder  and  hail  and  tremen- 
dous rains,  such  as  winter  does  not  know.  Thus  the  per- 
fect enjoy  a  more  stable  and  durable  quiet,  and  God's 
visitations  of  them  are  much  more  frequent.  Yet  occa- 
sionally He  tries  them  with  more  awful  inward  conflictg 
38 


446        THE   RIGHT   USE   OE   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS. 

and  penul  desolations,  so  as  to  advance  them  in  humility. 
Yet  in  the  midst  of  these  tempests  He  sends  upon  them 
scattered  rays  of  light,  so  that  the  nights  seem  almost  to 
be  days  because  of  the  frequency  of  the  divine  lightnings. 
Sixthly,  we  have  to  consider  the  way  to  obtain  these 
favors.  The  teaching  of  all  the  old  spiritual  books  is 
that  we  are  to  besiege  God  for  them,  like  the  importunate 
widow  in  the  Gospel.  If  we  are  to  know,  says  one,  how 
we  are  to  desire  them,  let  us  look  how  the  old  patriarchs 
desired  Christ.  They  must  be  our  model.  As  they 
yearned  for  Him  in  the  flesh,  so  must  we  yearn  for  Him 
in  these  favors;  for  it  is  truly  Himself  we  seek  when  we 
seek  them.  Sicut  antiqui  patres !  it  is  hard  to  have 
before  us  an  example  of  more  intense  desire.  To  be 
humble  when  they  come,  and  grateful  as  well  as  humble, 
is  the  way  to  win  them  back  again  with  increased  riches, 
and  more  exuberant  sweetness.  When  our  Lord  sees 
that  we  are  solicitous  to  retain  Him,  and  will  not  let  Him 
go,  as  Jacob  held  the  angel  fast  till  morning  light,  He 
indulges  us,  and  if  He  quits  us  then,  He  soon  returns 
again.  If  we  are  anxious  forthwith  to  turn  the  sweetness 
of  His  favors  into  solid  virtues,  increased  mortification, 
redoubled  prayer,  and  practical  holiness,  we  have  insured 
His  speedy  returns  and  His  more  frequent  visitation. 
There  are  two  cases  also  in  which  it  pleases  Him  and 
makes  Him  love  to  haunt  us,  if  we  say,  Fuge,  Dilecte  mi, 
Fly,  my  Beloved.  One  is  when  discretion  tells  us  that 
exuberant  devotion  is  becoming  injurious  to  our  health,  and 
encroaching  on  our  work;  and  the  other  is  when  obedi* 
ence  and  duty  call  us  off  from  the  secret  caresses  of  His 
love.  We  must  learn,  as  St.  Philip  said,  to  leave  Christ 
for  Christ.    Moreover  if  we  would  enjoy  to  the  uttermost 


THE  RIGHT   USE   OP    SPIRITUAL   FAVORS  447 

the  frequency  of  these  divine  favors,  we  must  beware  of 
an  inordinate  and  irregular  greediness  for  them,  and  of 
any  complacency  or  return  upon  self  in  them.  Louis  of 
Blois  mentions  the  case  of  a  pious  person  who  was 
punished  with  a  dryness  of  fifteen  years  because  of  one 
vain  complacency  in  her  spiritual  favors.  We  must  also 
cautiously  avoid  all  culpable  distractions  at  prayer ;  for 
God  only  fills  empty  souls,  says  St.  Bernard,  quoting  the 
miracle  of  Eliseus  and  the  oil  (4  Kings  iv.).  When  the 
vessels  were  full,  she  said  to  her  son,  Bring  me  yet  a  vessel. 
And  he  answered,  I  have  no  more.     And  the  oil  stood 

Seventhly,  we  have  to  consider  the  right  use  of  these 
-spiritual  favors.  After  what  has  been  said,  a  few  words 
will  dismiss  this  part  of  our  subject.  We  have  seen  that 
we  must  value  them  and  pray  for  them,  and  yet  not  be 
greedy  of  them.  We  must  desire  them,  not  for  their 
own  sakes,  but  for  their  divine  effects  and  solid  virtues. 
We  must  commute  sweetness  into  additional  practice, 
and  consolation  into  increased  strength,  as  fast  as  they 
come.  We  must  receive  them  with  the  profoundest 
humility,  and  with  a  growing  fervor.  They  must  be- 
come the  marrow  of  our  mortifications,  and  be  abun- 
dantly and  unsparingly  poured  out  in  kindness  to  others, 
and  in  zeal  for  souls,  and  in  ministries  to  the  poor. 
We  must  with  a  holy  superstition  keep  them  secret,  as 
the  secret  of  a  king.  As  soon  as  they  are  known  they 
will  evanesce.  This  is  their  way.  When  God  means  us 
to  let  any  of  them  be  known,  He  will  give  us  such  a  light 
that  we  cannot  mistake  Him  and  such  an  impulse  that 
we  cannot  resist  Him.  Perhaps  this  will  not  be  once  in 
our  whole  life.  Then  also  we  must  have  the  art  of  for- 
getting them  and  remembering  them  at  the  right  times 


448         THE   RIGHT   USE   OP   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS. 

This  must  be  according  as  presumption  and  discourage- 
ment,  those  two  sleepless  deflecting  powers  of  the  spiritua 
creation,  try  to  disturb  the  equilibrium  of  our  soul. 
Finally  they  must  make  us  languish  after  God ;  for  what 
do  they  show  us,  with  their  heaven  upon  earth,  so  much 
as  this,  that  it  is  not  really  heaven  that  is  sweet,  but  the 
God  of  heaven  ? 

Eighthly,  we  have  to  consider  the  discrepance  between 
ancient  and  modern  books  on  the  subject  of  these  favors. 
What  has  been  already  said  shows  that  these  gifts  have  a 
dangerous  side,  and  that  caution  and  moderation  are 
required  in  the  using  of  them.  Barring  certain  exaggera- 
tions, I  do  not  think  any  really  contradictory  propositions 
could  be  drawn  from  the  two  classes  of  writers  on  the 
subject.  The  genius  of  the  ancients  led  them  to  put  for- 
ward the  beauty  and  desirableness,  nay,  the  necessity,  of 
these  favors;  while  the  spirit  of  the  moderns  led  them  to 
dwell  on  the  dangers  of  an  immoderate  appetite  for  them, 
and  the  perils  of  an  incautious  use.  It  is  the  very  aim 
of  a  spiritual  writer  to  speak  to  those  of  his  own  day. 
He  is  without  meaning  if  he  does  not.  Now  I  suppose 
that  modern  writers  found  the  world  very  much  more 
effeminate  than  it  was  in  the  days  of  Gerson.  Richard  of 
St.  Victor,  Tauler,  Ruysbroke,  Hugh  of  St.  Victor,  St. 
Bonaventure,  and  Louis  of  Blois,  to  say  nothing  of  St. 
John  Climacus,  St.  Nilus,  Cassian,  and  St.  Gregory. 
This  want  of  mortification  would  at  once  make  the  appe- 
tite for  spiritual  sweetness  more  immoderate  and  the  use 
of  it  less  cautious.  The  greater  subjective  turn  of  the 
human  mind,  and  possibly  the  weakened  nerves  of  the 
race,  have  rendered  delusions  much  more  common  than 
they  were,  or  possibly,  as  the  times  of  Antichrist  draw 


THE   RIGHT   USE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS.         449 

nearer,  Satan's  chain  may  be  lengthened ;  or  we  may  take 
the  view  that  they  were  more  common  when  the  modern 
spiritual  school  was  forming  than  they  are  now,  when  the 
Jesuit  writers  have  so  flooded  with  scientific  light  every 
nook  of  ascetical  theology.  Moreover  the  number  of  new 
saints,  and  the  publication  of  their  lives,  make  the  know- 
ledge of  these  favors  more  common,  and  people  more 
readily  fancy  they  are  in  spiritual  states  analogous  to 
those  they  read  of  in  the  lives  of  the  saints.  Possibly 
humility  is  less  flourishing  in  the  world  than  it  was, 
though  it  never  can  have  flourished  much.  Moreover, 
heresies  abound  in  false  sweetnesses,  and  are  multiplied  on 
the  matters  which  concern  the  ascetic  life.  Jansenism 
had  not  only  a  system  of  false  dogma,  but  one  also  of 
diabolical  spiritualism;  and  Quietism  had  almost  fright- 
ened men  away  from  an  act  of  pure  love,  especially  when 
they  found  all  Quietism  out  of  favor  with  the  Holy  See, 
even  in  Fenelon's  extremest  mitigations  of  the  heresy.  I 
venture  to  make  these  conjectures  in  defence  of  the  modern 
writers,  especially  as  they  are  more  attainable  by  most 
readers,  and  are  safer  in  that  their  writers  had  the  advan- 
tage of  many  definitions  of  the  Church  which  their  pre- 
decessors had  not ;  and  I  am  anxious  to  show  that  the 
tradition  of  the  spiritual  life  in  the  Church  has  always 
been  substantially  one  and  the  same.  I  may  therefore 
be  permitted  to  add  (which  I  do,  speaking  under  correc- 
tion), that  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  in  the  grand  French 
ascetics  of  the  seventeenth  century  there  is  an  extremely 
faint  reflection  of  Quietism,  which  appears  here  and  there 
in  their  systems,  like  wayward  summer  lightning,  espe- 
cially when  they  speak  of  the  abnegation  of  self,  of  tha 
discernment  between  God  and  His  favors,  of  the  blessings 
38*  2D 


4  50         THE   RIGHT   USE   OF    SPIRITUAL   FAVORS. 

of  aridity,  of  what  they  call  the  nudity  of  faith,  and  othet 
homogeneous  subjects.  Not  that  there  is  not  &  holy  truth 
in  all  these  things :  but  I  cannot  disabuse  myself  of  the 
prejudice,  if  it  be  a  prejudice,  that  there  is  a  little  exag- 
geration in  their  way  of  putting  them  forward,  and  that 
that  exaggeration  is  in  the  direction  of  Quietism.  As 
Alvarez  de  Paz  says,  no  one  should  be  heard  on  the  subject 
of  spiritual  sweetness  whom  God  has  not  led  by  them. 

In  the  life  of  St.  Jane  Frances  de  Chantal  we  read  as 
follows.*  While  she  was  in  one  of  the  largest  cities  in 
France,  a  religious,  a  person  of  great  virtue,  desired  to 
speak  with  her  respecting  her  soul,  which  she  readily 
allowed.  These  two  great  servants  of  our  Lord  discover- 
ing to  each  other  in  all  simplicity  the  paths  by  which  our 
Lord  had  led  them,  the  religious  said  to  our  Mother,  that 
she  was  occasionally  so  tired  interiorly,  as  to  be  reduced 
to  great  weakness  and  extreme  languor ;  so  that  she  was 
obliged  to  be  contented  with  knowing  that  God  is  God, 
without  daring  to  call  him  her  God,  or  even  thinking  that 
He  was  her  God.  Our  saint's  reply  was  as  follows :  I 
shall  leave  that  point  to  you,  my  dear  Mother,  and  I  shall 
never  practise  this  abnegation.  However  tormented  and 
beaten  down  my  soul  has  been,  it  has  never  been  so  low 
that  I  could  not  say,  My  God,  Thou  art  my  God  and  the 
God  of  my  heart.  For  if  the  faith  teaches  me  that  He 
is  my  God,  the  baptism  which  I  have  received  makes  me 
realize  that  of  a  truth  He  is  my  God.  The  religious  im- 
mediately replied,  that  it  seemed  to  her  that  in  saying 
that  word,  my  God,  we  had  not  arrived  at  a  perfect  spirit 
of  abnegation.  To  this  our  Mother  replied  that  our  feel- 
ing of  abandonment  could  never  equal  that  of  the  Son 

*  Vol.  ii.  p.  25.     Oratorian  Edition. 


THE   RIGHT   USE   OF   SPIRITUAL   FAVORS.         451 

of  God,  and  that  in  the  greatest  of  His  trials,  He  had 
*aid,  My  God!  My  God!  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me? 
adding,  I  have  often  said  to  our  Lord,  when  most  severely 
tried,  that  if  it  was  His  pleasure  that  I  should  dwell  in 
hell,  provided  it  could  be  done  without  ray  offending  Him, 
and  that  my  eternal  torment  should  be  to  his  eternal 
glory,  I  should  be  satisfied,  but  that  for  all  that  He  should 
be  always  my  God.  The  religious  thanked  our  Mother 
for  the  light  which  she  had  imparted  to  her,  declaring 
that  she  was  well  fitted  to  be  her  mistress  in  divine  love, 
that  she  would  never  forget  her  maxims,  and  that  there 
was  no  more  delicate  matter  in  the  spiritual  life  than  the 
knowing  how  to  follow  the  example  which  the  Father  has 
Bet  us  in  His  Son  our  Lord.  The  saint  very  often 
recurred  to  this  conversation,  it  made  so  strong  an  im- 
pression on  her. 

What,  then,  is  the  result  of  our  inquiry  on  this  most 
delicate  subject  of  spiritual  favors  ?  Briefly,  it  comes  to 
this.  They  are  from  God,  and  they  are  signs  of  love. 
He  knows  best  the  times  and  seasons,  the  ways  and  the 
means,  of  sending  them ;  and  as  He  always  sends  them 
for  good  and  never  for  a  snare,  this  consideration  of  His 
knowledge  of  us  should  enable  us  to  abate  any  exaggera- 
tions of  fear  or  caution  we  may  have  about  them.  The 
idea  of  their  being  merely  sweetmeats  to  allure  children, 
is  as  false  in  theology  as  it  is  surely  intolerable  as  a  ques- 
tion of  taste  and  reverence,  and  contradicted  by  all  expe- 
rience, as  the  saints  are  the  persons  who  abound  most  in 
these  very  favors.  Neither  are  they  to  be  considered  as 
one  of  G-od's  many  ways  of  leading  souls.  Some  He  leads 
by  an  abundance  of  them.  Others  by  fewer.  But  none 
either  by  absolutely  few,  or  by  none.  We  must  therefore 
mafee  them  the  subject  of  earnest  prayer 


452         THE   RIGHT   USE   0*    SPIRITUAL   FAVORS. 

By  them  we  attain  an  experimental  knowledge  of  God, 
which,  while  it  requires  to  be  corrected  by  theology,  is 
greater  than  any  that  theology  can  teach  us.  They  give 
us  power  over  nature  and  against  evil.  They  subject  to 
us  the  human  spirit,  and  the  demons.  They  give  us  a 
facility  in  fulfilling  our  vocations.  They  intensify  our 
love,  fortify  us  in  temptation,  give  us  confidence  in  God, 
enlarge  our  gift  of  faith,  and  make  us  the  comforters  of 
our  brethren.  May  we  not  say  with  the  people  of  Ca- 
pharnaum,  Lord  !  give  us  always  this  bread  ?  Or,  with 
truth  in  every  word,  make  the  prayer  of  the  poor  Sama- 
ritan woman  our  own,  Sir,  give  me  this  water,  thit  I  may 
not  thirst,  nor  come  hither  to  draw  ?  * 

•  S.  John  ri.  34,  ir.  16. 


DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES.  458 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR  REMEDIES. 

I?  is  usually  said  that  prayer  has  four  enemies,  distrac- 
tions, scruples,  dryness,  and  desolation.  Scruples  have 
already  been  treated  of;  and  for  the  class  of  persons  I  am 
addressing,  enough  has  been  said  of  dryness  and  desola- 
tion when  we  considered  the  denial,  delay,  or  suspension 
of  divine  favors.  It  remains  now  to  say  something  on  the 
subject  of  distractions,  which  the  soul  in  the  progress  of 
the  spiritual  life  finds  one  of  its  most  obstinate  and  most 
tiresome  impediments :  tiresome,  because  it  takes  the 
smoothness,  sweetness,  and  facility  out  of  all  devotion, 
and  obstinate,  inasmuch  as  it  appears  to  acknowledge  the 
power  of  no  specifics,  but  to  be  irritated  and  worsened  by 
the  very  application  of  remedies.  For  there  is  nothing 
which  looks  so  much  like  our  own  fault  as  distractions, 
and  I  fully  believe  that  no  impediment  of  the  spiritual 
life  is  more  often  without  any  fault  at  all.  In  most  cases 
it  is  an  unavoidable  mortification,  and  the  fault  it  leads  to 
is  not  want  of  attention  at  prayer,  but  want  of  patience  at 
having  our  prayer  teased,  embittered,  and  dishonored. 

Distractions  are  said  more  particularly  to  infest  begin- 
ners; and  they  contain  two  things,  the  wandering  or  re- 
moval of  the  mind  from  the  subject  of  prayer,  and  the 
occupation  of  the  imagination  by  impertinent  and  irrele- 
vant ideas.  Hence  it  comes  to  pass,  from  their  very 
definition,  and  while  they  greatly  injure  vocal  prayer, 


154  DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES. 

they  do  not  spoil  it  altogether;  whereas  mental  prayer  ia 
destroyed  by  them ;  for  in  mental  prayer  we  pray  while 
we  are  attending,  and  no  longer;  no  matter,  say  S.  Isidore 
and  Alvarez  de  Paz,  how  long  we  may  remain  upon  our 
knees.  Even  when  they  are  quite  inculpable,  St.  Thomas 
teaches  us  that  they  deprive  us  of  "  spiritual  reflection  of 
the  mind,"  which  comes  from  prayer.  They  are  like  the 
gnats  on  a  summer  evening,  which  tease  with  their  shrill- 
ness more  often  than  they  pierce  with  their  bites.  We 
strike  them  and  they  yield;  but  it  is  in  vain;  the  pliant 
cohorts  form  again  in  still  more  closely  serried  ranks  and 
pipe  on  a  higher  note  than  they  did  before.  Where  we 
go,  they  go ;  and  it  is  only  the  thin  air  of  the  high  hills 
of  mortification  or  the  coming  on  of  the  grateful  deep 
night  of  contemplation,  which  can  effectually  draw  off 
from  us  these  irritating  tenants  of  the  twilight. 

We  must  then  begin  our  inquiry  into  this  subject  by 
laying  to  heart  the  doctrine  of  the  abbot  Moses  in  Cassian, 
namely,  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  be  altogether  free 
from  distractions,  useless  to  attempt  it,  and  foolish  to  be  de- 
jected, because  we  have  not  accomplished  that  impossibility. 
Conscious  and  deliberate  acquiescence  in  and  retention  of 
distractions  are  of  course  our  own  affair;  for  it  is  in  our 
power  to  withhold  them ;  but  the  indeliberate  occupation 
of  our  minds  by  them  it  is  not  in  our  power  to  prevent. 
Nothing  can  hinder,  says  the  abbot,  bitter  thoughts  from 
disturbing  us,  wrong  thoughts  from  staining  us,  and  vain 
thoughts  from  disquieting  and  fatiguing  us.  The  first 
sort  of  distractions  he  calls  sand,  the  second  pitch,  and 
the  third  straw.  The  author  of  the  treatise  on  the  love 
of  God,  among  the  spurious  works  of  S.  Bernard,  seems 
to  countenance  the  doctrine  already  laid  down,  that  they 


DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES.  455 

accompany  us  to  the  mountain  of  contemplation,  and  leave 
us  there;  for  he  compares  them  to  Abraham's  joung 
men,  while  he  likens  his  body  to  the  ass,  and  his  reason 
to  Isaac,  and  he  says,  You  cares,  you  anxieties,  you  toils, 
you  pains,  you  slaveries,  all  you  distractions,  stay  you 
here  with  the  ass,  the  body :  I  and  the  boy  will  go  with 
speed  as  far  as  yonder,  and  after  we  have  worshipped,  will 
return  to  you.  Thus  there  is  a  sort  of  parallel  between 
distractions  and  venial  sins.  We  cannot  avoid  them  at 
all ;  but  let  us  take  them  in  detail,  and  we  can  avoid  them 
one  by  one.  Thus,  to  any  one  who  has  made  up  his 
mind  entirely  to  cure  himself  of  distractions,  I  would  say, 
You  will  never  succeed.  You  are  aiming  at  a  state  which 
is  only  transient,  even  with  the  saints,  and  belongs  to 
contemplation.  Your  strife  will  increase  your  malady; 
and  your  want  of  success  will  plunge  you  in  self-vexation 
and  pusillanimity.  Every  reason  I  gave  you  to  be  quiet 
with  your  faults  tells  with  greater  force  in  the  case  of  dis- 
tractions; for  they  are  much  more  inevitable  tnan  faults. 
A  complete  and  final  cure  is  out  of  the  question. 

So  well  aware  is  the  tempter  that  distractions  are  one 
of  the  unavoidable  infirmities  of  our  nature,  and  at  the 
same  time  one  of  the  most  vexing  and  annoying  to  the 
human  spirit,  that  he  often  tries  to  delude  spiritual  per- 
sons into  taking  the  diminution  of  their  distractions  as 
the  test  of  their  progress  in  the  spiritual  life.  He  gains 
many  objects  by  this  one  stratagem.  He  calls  off  their 
attention  from  real  faults,  especially  those  of  the  tongue 
and  misuse  of  time,  and  from  the  means  of  advancement, 
where  their  attention  would  be  profitably  employed ;  and 
he  fixes  their  eyes,  and  aims,  and  desires,  on  an  object, 
nr    hopeless   as   the   unprofitable    labors  which  are  put 


456  DISTRACTIONS    AND    THEIR   REMEEIfiS. 

among  the  punishments  of  the  heathen  hell.  For  ever 
to  be  rolling  a  stone  up  an  impossible  hill,  and  for  ever  to 
be  filling  at  the  fountain  the  vessel  that  leaks,  this  is 
what  these  poor  souls  have  condemned  themselves  to  do  j 
and  as  they  have  taken  it  as  the  measure  of  their  pro- 
gress, through  what  anxieties,  and  strainings,  and  forced 
marches,  and  discouragements,  and  swamps  of  sadness, 
will  not  the  Will  of  the  Wisp  lead  them  !  To  resolve  to 
be  altogether  quit  of  your  distractions  is  to  keep  and  to 
pay  a  standing  army  of  them ;  and  in  the  end  they  will 
be  the  sovereign,  not  you.  Despots  have  slaughtered 
Janissaries  whom  they  could  not  disband,  and  have 
broken  the  stone  turbans  off  their  graves.  You  will  have- 
no  such  success  with  your  distractions. 

When  we  proceed  to  examine  the  sources  from  which 
distractions  come,  we  must  bear  in  mind  the  definition  of 
them,  and  the  two  processes  which  it  implies,  the  removal 
of  the  mind  from  the  subject  of  prayer,  and  the  occupa- 
tion of  the  imagination  by  irrelevant  ideas  and  images. 
With  this  definition  for  our  guide  we  shall  discover  that 
this  great  Nile  of  distractions  has  five  fountains :  dis- 
ordered health,  the  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  devil, 
inculpable  self,  and  culpable  self. 

By  disordered  health  I  do  not  so  much  mean  actual 
illness,  when  in  all  probability  ejaculatory  acts  of  love, 
of  patience,  and  of  conformity,  will  form  the  whole  of  the 
sufferer's  prayers,  with  a  constant  quiet  eye  on  his  Cru- 
cifix, or  some  other  emblem  of  the  Passion.  I  rather 
mean  the  valetudinarian  state  which  is  now  so  very  com- 
mon, with  its  distinguishing  bodily  feebleness,  and  daily 
tendency  to  slight  headache,  especially  when,  as  is  often 
the  case,  the  feeling  of  fatigue  is  greatest  at  first  rising 


DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES.  457 

in  the  morning.  With  many  persons  this  is  so  distiessing 
that  they  are  quite  unable  to  make  a  morning  meditation. 
In  these  cases,  bodily  strength  is  wanting  to  keep  off  or 
to  banish  distractions.  The  greater  the  effort  made,  the 
greater  will  the  vehemence  of  the  distractions  be,  and  the 
result  of  a  violent  effort  will  be  an  inability  to  pray  at  all. 
Such  persons  must  be  quiet  and  tranquil,  and  try  to 
keep  God's  presence  lovingly  before  them  with  gentleness 
and  without  scruple.  It  will  seem  to  themselves  that 
they  do  not  pray  at  all,  and  that  their  attempts  are  so 
many  constellations  of  venial  sins.  But  this  is  really 
very  far  from  being  the  case.  They  must  take  the  annoy- 
ance as  they  would  any  other  consequence  of  ill-health, 
and  learn  humility  in  its  endurance.  If  they  are  quiet, 
they  will  have  a  spot  within  where  there  is  peace,  even 
while  distractions  are  raging  without ;  but  if  they  make 
vehement  and  ill-advised  efforts,  they  will  only  surrender 
to  the  distractions  that  inward  sanctuary  also. 

The  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  another  fountain  of 
distractions.  Just  as  persons  in  the  higher  stages  of  the 
spiritual  life  are  supernaturally  tried  and  purified  by 
desolations  and  aridities,  so  those  who  are  passing  through 
the  earlier  stages,  and  along  the  more  ordinary  paths  of 
perfection,  are  sometimes  put  into  a  crucible  of  distrac- 
tions, in  order  to  ground  them  in  more  solid  devotion,  to 
burn  away  the  remains  of  sin,  and  to  subdue  the  vivacity 
of  self-love.  It  is  not  easy  for  a  man  to  know  when  the 
distractions  he  is  suffering  from  are  supernatural.  Per- 
haps the  knowledge  would  interfere  with  th  ~ir  efficacy. 
Still  it  is  a  consolation  to  know  that  there  -ire  cases  in 
which  distractions  are  a  divine  trial;  and  thae  one  pro- 
bable sign  of  their  being  so  is  when  we  are  unt-ble  to  at 
39 


458  DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES. 

tribute  their  unusual  inroad,  or  its  perseverance,  to  any 
other  cause  or  to  any  fault  of  our  own.  There  is  also 
another  class  of  supernatural  distractions,  which  must  be 
noticed.  These  infest  us  when  the  Holy  Spirit  is  calling 
us  to  a  different  subject  of  prayer,  or  to  a  higher  state  of 
prayer,  and  we  are  unconsciously  or  consciously  misunder- 
standing and  resisting  the  vocation.  He  will  let  us  have 
no  rest  until  we  obey  Him,  and  He  sends  us  these  dis- 
tractions to  harass  us  into  obedience. 

Thirdly,  distractions  may  come  from  the  devil,  and  in 
a  very  great  number  of  cases  do  so.  It  is  obvious  that 
devotion  is  fatal  to  his  kingdom  in  the  soul,  and  con- 
sequently must  always  be  one  of  his  main  objects  of 
attack.  His  distractions  may  be  known,  first  by  their 
torrent-like  abundance,  secondly  by  the  vivid  pictures 
which  accompany  them,  thirdly  by  their  disquieting  the 
soul  iu  a  peculiar  and  disproportionate  manner,  fourthly 
by  their  disconnection  with  the  ordinary  engrossing 
actions  of  our  state  of  life,  fifthly,  and  in  this  respect 
they  are  the  opposite  of  diabolical  scruples,  by  their  want 
of  variety,  and  their  always  returning  to  the  charge  in 
the  same  shape,  and  sixthly,  by  their  being  of  such  a 
nature,  as  if  dwelt  upon  will  easily  become  sin.  Reguera, 
in  his  Mystical  Theology,  tells  us  not  to  pursue  distrac- 
tions at  all,  but  to  treat  them  as  a  man  does  barking  dogs 
as  he  passes  through  a  street.  This  advice  applies  with 
peculiar  force  to  those  distractions  whose  origin  we  have 
reason  to  believe  is  diabolical. 

Inculpable  self  is  the  fourth  source  of  distractions,  or 
rather  contains  within  itself  four  distinct  springs  of  them. 
The  first  is  the  imagination,  which  is  much  more  strongly 
developed  in  some  persons  than  others,  and  mu(h  more 


DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES.  459 

susceptible  of  images  presented  to  it.  Thus  there  are 
instances  of  men  unable  to  make  what  is  called  the  com- 
position of  place  in  meditation,  that  is,  the  picture  of  the 
mystery,  because  the  vividness  of  the  picture  so  excites 
their  imagination,  that  it  is  a  source  of  distractions  to 
them  all  through  their  hour  of  prayer.  The  ruling  pas- 
sion is  another  of  these  springs.  All  ideas  and  objects 
connected  with  it  seem  to  participate  both  in  its  domineer- 
ing spirit  and  its  tenacity.  They  are  always  seen  as  it 
were  through  a  magnifying  medium,  and  lay  so  strong  a 
hold  upon  the  mind  that  it  is  difficult  to  shake  them  off; 
and  when,  as  in  the  act  of  prayer,  other  external  objects 
are  shaken  off  by  the  ordinary  efforts  we  naturally  make 
at  that  time,  those  which  are  connected  with  the  ruling  pas- 
sion only  seem  to  have  the  field  more  comparatively  to  them- 
selves, and  to  subject  the  mind  to  a  more  rigorous  tyranny. 
The  third  spring  is  what  has  been  called  the  "  ingenium 
vagum,"  the  genius  of  dissipation,  the  turn  of  mind 
which  makes  a  man  diffuse  himself  over  many  objects, 
and  turn  away  with  repugnance  from  interior  things.  It 
is  just  the  opposite  of  concentration.  It  has  no  fixity, 
no  steadiness.  It  is  a  constitutional  flaw  in  the  mind, 
analogous  to  irresoluteness  in  the  will.  It  loves  novelty 
and  change,  and  show,  and  sound,  and  hurry,  and  many 
thiugs  to  do,  and  the  luxury  of  complaining  it  has  many 
things  to  do.  Like  all  constitutional  faults,  it  is  full  of 
the  possibilities  of  moral  evil,  still  it  is  itself  constitu- 
tional, and  so  inculpable.  In  speaking  of  the  human 
spirit  I  quoted  Scaramelli  to  show  that  there  was  a  pro- 
foundly melancholy  temperament  which  could  nail  itself 
so  undistractedly  to  an  object  as  to  be  mistaken  for  a 
supernatural  gift  of  contemplation.    The  ingenium  vagum 


460  DISTRACTIONS    AND    THEIR   REMEDIES. 

is  just  the  very  opposite  to  this ;  and  as  the  former  is  with. 
out  merit,  so  is  the  latter  without  blame.  The  fourth 
spring  is  the  unskilfulness  of  our  spiritual  director. 
Directors,  who  drag  their  penitents  rather  than  follow 
them  to  keep  them  in  the  way,  are  necessarily  the  cause 
of  habitual  distractions,  because  the  souls  of  their  peni- 
tents are  always  in  an  unreal  and  forced  state,  and  are  not 
developing  in  the  way  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Hence  they 
are  feverish,  panic-stricken,  obstinate,  now  querulous, 
now  fantastic,  one  while  dumb,  another  while  loquacious, 
and  a  few  years  hence  would  have  given  up  the  pursuit 
of  perfection  altogether.  The  prayers  of  such  persons 
are  composed  of  two-thirds  distractions  and  one-third 
petulant  complaint  of  the  distractions  to  Grod.  Other 
directors  have  a  pet  method  of  prayer,  and  will  insist  on 
all  their  penitents  praying  as  they  do.  None  are  to  pray 
lower.  Perfection,  say  they,  requires  such  or  such  a 
degree  of  prayer.  None  are  to  pray  higher.  It  would 
be  delusion.  Such  a  director  looks  down  upon  his  flock 
as  on  a  lower  level  than  himself  on  the  mountain.  He 
is  piping  up  above.  It  does  not  strike  him  that  he  is 
ever  to  look  up,  sometimes  with  dazzled  eyes  and  aching 
neck,  at  penitents  above  him.  All  above  him  are 
stragglers.  He  sends  his  dog  for  them,  and  they  come 
precipitately  down  at  the  peril  of  their  lives.  Others 
take  Scaramelli  and  such  books,  and  pass  their  penitents 
through  twelve  or  fifteen  degrees  of  prayer  in  succession, 
like  the  stages  of  an  operation,  a  manufacture,  o?  a  medi- 
cal cure.  They  can  tell  as  well  where  they  are  in  prayer 
as  they  can  show  by  a  map  how  far  they  are  on  their  road 
to  a  given  place.  The  consequence,  to  the  poor  penitents, 
of    all    this   narrowness    and   pedantry   in    their   being 


DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES.  161 

devoured  by  wolves  the  whole  time  of  prayer.  To  be  in 
a  state  of  prayer  in  which  God  does  not  will  us  to  be,  is  a 
zind  of  spiritual  dislocation.  We  snail  be  easy  in  no 
posture,  and  recollection  is  impossible.  These  four  springs 
together  make  up  the  source  of  inculpable  self. 

The  fourth  and  last  fountain  of  distractions  is  culpable 
self.  All  distractions,  from  whatever  source,  are  culpable, 
if  we  clearly  perceive  them  and  deliberately  entertain 
them.  They  become  culpable  in  the  same  way  as  temp- 
tations become  sins,  by  advertence  and  consent.  But, 
beyond  this,  there  is  a  class  of  distractions  arising  imme- 
diately from  ourselves,  and  which  are  always  culpable. 
They  have  two  springs,  the  body  and  the  mind.  The 
body  culpably  causes  them,  when  we  practise  no  sort  of 
mortification,  and  foresee  that  the  result  of  that  neglect 
will  be  distractions.  Irreverent  postures  in  prayer,  and 
continual  changes  of  position,  and  all  want  of  outward 
modesty  and  propriety,  also  give  rise  to  distractions  which 
are  culpable.  The  remedy  for  these  is  of  course  as  obvi- 
ous as  their  cause.  Then  the  mind  is  another  prolific 
spring  of  several  classes  of  distractions  for  which  we  have 
no  one  to  blame  but  ourselves.  We  have  debauched  our 
Dwn  minds.  We  have  disarmed  our  spirit,  and  left  it  a 
helpless  prey  to  those  merciless  distractions. 

Among  our  many  faults  there  are  seven  especially, 
which  not  only  indirectly,  but  directly,  play  into  the 
hands  of  distractions.  The  first  is  a  carelessness  about 
very  minute  sins,  which,  like  the  dead  flies  in  the  apothe- 
caries' ointment,  may  be  indefinitely  small,  and  yet  cor- 
rupt the  purity  of  intention  of  all  we  do.  They  dissipate 
the  mind,  induce  one  or  other  of  the  forms  of  spiritual 
idleness,  involve  supernatural  objects  in  a  sort  of  fog,  and 
39* 


*62  DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES. 

weaken  grace  at  every  turn.  The  second  fault  is  tepidity, 
of  which  I  shall  have  to  speak  in  the  following  chapter. 
The  third  is  curiosity,  and  especially  a  thirst  for  news, 
whether  it  be  of  the  great  world,  the  camp  and  the  court 
far  off,  or  details  of  what  our  neighbors  are  saying,  doing, 
and  suffering,  or  an  inordinate  love  of  writing  and  receiv- 
ing letters,  or  the  puerile  magnifications  and  idolatries  of 
domestic  life  and  love.  All  these  must  be  paid  for,  to 
the  uttermost  farthing,  by  these  inexorable  distractions. 
Shylock  will  not  stick  to  his  bond  more  pertinaciously 
than  they.  The  fourth  fault  is  going  to  prayer  without 
due  preparation.  We  walk  in  and  out  of  the  presence  of 
God,  without  doing  reverence  or  homage,  or  observing 
any  of  the  ceremonial  of  His  august  celestial  court.  There 
is  no  one  perhaps  with  whom  we  are  more  rude  than  with 
the  Incomprehensible  God ;  and  we  are  never  really 
familiar  with  those  to  whom  we  are  rude.  Hence  come 
distractions,  which  can  breathe  any  air  but  that  of  holy 
familiarity  with  God.  A  fifth  fault  is  our  want  of  custody 
of  the  senses,  not  merely  in  the  time  of  prayer  but  out  of 
it.  Distractions  being  an  infirmity  of  our  nature,  we  can- 
not purchase,  I  will  not  say  immunity,  but  a  sufficiently 
ample  jurisdiction  over  them,  without  a  sacrifice  on  our 
own  part.  We  cannot  enjoy  to  the  full  our  unshackled 
liberty  of  looking  where  we  will  and  listening  to  what  we 
will,  even  far  short  of  sin,  and  not  take  the  consequences 
which  follow  by  the  mere  operation  of  the  natural  laws 
of  mind.  The  manner  as  well  as  the  amount  of  custody 
of  the  senses  is  different  in  each  case ;  but  without  some 
manner  and  some  amount  we  shall  always  be  powerless 
over  distractions.  Our  sixth  fault  is  our  neglecting  to 
practise  ejaculatory  prayers.  They  are,  so  to  speak,  the 
heavenly  side  of  distractions,  thoughts  of  God  which  dis- 


DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES.  463 

tract  us  from  the  world,  and  interfere  with  the  quiet  pos- 
Bession  which  the  world  has  taken  of  our  souls.  Ejacula- 
tions are  our  doing  for  God  what  distractions  do  against 
Him.  They  have  a  speciality  to  evict  distractions.  There 
is  no  better  practice  for  bringing  them  under  our  control. 
Our  seventh  and  last  fault  is  our  taking  no  pains  to  watch 
from  what  object  it  is  that  the  thickest  swarms  of  our 
distractions  arise,  and  then  mortifying  ourselves  in  those 
very  things.  Obvious  as  this  duty  is,  it  is  one  very  com- 
monly neglected.  Men  lock  at  distractions  as  unscientifio 
people  look  at  a  phenomenon.  It  tells  them  nothing.  It 
leads  to  nothing.  They  do  not  ask  whence  it  comes  nor 
whither  it  goes.  It  is  simply  a  phenomenon.  So  here 
are  these  distractions.  No  matter  whence  they  come; 
the  question  is  what  we  are  to  do  with  them.  Certainly; 
but  it  is  just  to  find  out  this  last,  that  we  must  know  the 
first.  If  our  imagination  is  fairly  sinking  at  prayer  in  a 
sea  of  distractions,  it  is  very  well  to  work  at  the  nrmps, 
but  it  is  something  more  to  find  out  the  leak.  Attention 
to  these  seven  faults  will  in  time  produce  something  like 
subordination  in  our  distractions ;  and  we  shall  never  get 
much  beyond  this,  until  our  whole  state  is  higher  and 
more  supernatural.  It  is  one  of  the  essential  and  incur- 
able defects  of  the  state  of  proficiency,  as  compared  with 
the  state  of  the  already  perfect ;  just  as  there  are  essential 
and  incurable  defects  in  beginners  which  gradually  disap- 
pear in  proficients.  Anything  that  helps  to  purity  of 
intention  helps  also  to  the  subjugation  of  distractions. 

But  the  great  thing  to  be  borne  in  mind  is  that  the 
time  of  prayer  is  not  the  time  for  the  true  combat  with 
distractions.  If  we  delay  till  then,  even  our  very  victories 
will  be  melancholy;  for  they  will  be  won  only  by  the  loss 


464  DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES. 

of  our  prayer.  How  many  persons  complain  of  their  dis- 
tractions, and  even  look  forward  with  a  sort  of  dread  to 
the  time  of  prayer  because  of  the  mental  suffering  it  will 
bring  with  it ;  and  yet  how  few  make  it  the  business  of 
their  lives,  out  of  prayer,  to  hinder  the  recurrence  of 
these  same  distractions  !  I  have  already  said,  and  I  will 
repeat  it,  that  when  a  man  is  not  seriously  directing  his 
life  out  of  prayer  against  the  sources  of  distractions,  prayer 
must  necessarily  be  the  most  distracted  of  times.  For 
we  empty  the  heart  of  many  things,  and  distractions  gush 
in  to  fill  up  the  void.  We  shall  never  get  rid  of  distrac^ 
tions  or  get  a  decent  mastery  over  them  by  fighting 
against  distractions,  but  by  fighting  against  something 
else,  against  the  source  or  cause  of  the  distractions;  and 
our  fight  must  cover  the  whole  breadth  of  our  daily  life. 

There  are  two  practices  of  interior  spirituality  which 
excellently  accomplish  this  end;  and  they  occupy  the 
entire  ground  of  life.  One  of  them  is  the  having  a  rule 
of  life;  and  the  other  devoting  our  undivided  attention  to 
the  perfecting  of  our  ordinary  actions.  With  regard  to 
the  rule  of  life,  it  is  so  completely  a  question  for  con- 
sideration in  each  particular  case,  that  I  shall  not  enter 
into  it  at  any  length.  Ic  gives  sanctity  in  the  world  a 
kind  of  shadowy  likeness  of  sanctity  in  a  convent,  which 
acts  sometimes  well,  sometimes  ill.  With  some  persons 
the  captivity  and  bondage  of  it  rapidly  advance  them  in 
holiness.  With  others  its  arrangements  only  minister  to 
delusion  and  self-love.  In  the  case  of  some  it  meets  their 
faults,  and  strangles  them  with  a  sort  of  slowly  twisting 
bow-string.  In  the  case  of  others,  it  ruins  their  delicacy 
of  conscience ;  their  attention  is  called  off  from  real  faults 
and  even  cryittg  imperfections,  and  is  so  fixed  on  obedi- 


DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES.  465 

ence  to  the  details  of  their  rules,  that  their  conscience 
comes  soon  to  feel  keenly  the  one,  which  is  of  little  con- 
sequence, and  be  callous  to  the  other,  in  which  even 
questions  of  sin  are  often  concerned.  People  will  confess 
with  real  sorrow  a  breach  of  their  tfme-paper,  who  forget 
even  to  mention  that  they  spoke  sharply  to  their  servant, 
or  discussed  the  character  of  an  absent  neighbor.  Of  all 
the  appliances  of  the  spiritual  life  there  are  none  which 
can  with  less  wisdom  and  safety  be  indiscriminately  applied. 
Upon  the  whole,  fewer  can  wear  the  yoke  than  not ;  or  at 
least  as  many  get  injury  as  get  benefit,  from  this  form  of 
spirituality.  Only,  where  it  succeeds,  it  succeeds  admir- 
ably. But  in  the  case  of  persons  living  in  the  world,  I 
believe  rules  have  stunted  more  souls  than  they  have 
advanced. 

But  there  are  none  to  whom  our  Lady's  devotion,  her 
shape  of  the  spiritual  life,  cannot  be  applied  with  abundant 
blessings :  I  mean  the  attempt  to  do  perfectly  our  ordi- 
nary actions.  This  is  the  most  excellent  of  practices, 
and  walks  in  a  clear  air  which  delusions  seldom  can  ob- 
scure ;  and  our  power  over  our  distractions  grows  in  pro- 
portion to  our  perseverance  and  our  skill  in  this  exercise. 

Methods  for  this  practice  abound  in  our  most  approved 
spiritual  writers.  I  will  select  one  out  of  many,  because 
of  its  simplicity,  clearness,  and  spirituality.  There  are 
then  two  things  to  be  regarded  in  every  one  of  our  ordi- 
nary actions,  the  exterior  and  the  interior.  The  exterior 
is  to  it  what  the  body  is  to  the  soul,  as  necessary  and  yet 
also  as  subordinate.  Where  outward  discipline  is  want- 
ing, interior  perfection  cannot  be  observed,  says  William 
of  Paris.  The  religion  of  our  exterior,  says  St.  Bona* 
venture,  excites  the  affection  of  our  interior.     The  per- 

2E 


166  DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES. 

fection  of  the  exterior  of  our  actions  is  attained  by  the 
presence  of  three  virtues,  fidelity,  punctuality,  and 
modesty.  Fidelity  enables  us  to  admit  nothing,  punctu- 
ality to  procrastinate  nothing,  and  modesty  to  do  all 
things  with  gracefulness  and  edification. 

For  the  interior  of  our  actions  three  things  also  are 
required  :  to  do  all  for  God,  in  the  presence  of  God,  and 
in  the  sight  of  Jesus. 

To  do  our  actions  for  God  is  to  refer  them  to  him  by 
an  act  of  intention.  Many  actions  are  done  for  a  bad 
intention,  such  as  the  desire  of  praise;  and  then  the  act 
is  vitiated.  Many  also  are  done  with  merely  human  in- 
tentions, as  for  the  pleasure  of  a  thing,  and  then  there  is 
no  merit.  And  alas  !  multitudes  of  actions  of  multitudes 
of  men  are  done  with  no  intention  at  all;  and  custom, 
precipitation,  and  negligence,  devour  what  might  have 
been  the  pure  food  of  God's  greater  glory.  0  what 
teeming  years  of  human  life  are  wasted  through  this  un- 
thinking absence  of  all  intention ;  and  we  thought  our- 
selves so  good  because  after  all  we  were  not  so  bad  ;  and 
now  tears  of  blood  will  not  weep  them  back  again  !  When 
we  are  doing  a  great  thing  for  God,  we  must  momentarily 
collect  ourselves  before  acting,  and  try  to  touch  lightly 
with  our  intention  the  beginning,  middle,  and  end  of  each 
considerable  action,  and  not  throw  away,  as  fish  too  small 
for  the  table,  the  little  actions  of  the  day. 

Now  I  have  said  certain  things  here  which  will  imme- 
diately turn  to  scruples  in  some  minds,  if  I  do  not  meet 
them  by  giving  some  signs  which,  without  an  absurd 
over-exactness  of  self-inspection,  will  enable  us  to  know 
whether  on  the  whole  we  are  doing  our  works  for  God. 
Here  is  one  sign :  we  are  really  working  for  God,  if  we 


DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES.  467 

eould  say  Yes,  did  any  one  suddenly  ask  us  if  what  we 
are  doing  is  for  God.  Another  is,  if  we  are  not  uneasily 
anxious  about  the  judgment  men  will  pass  upon  our 
actions.  A  third  is,  if  we  are  not  wholly  indifferent,  but 
quite  tranquil  about  success.  A  fourth  is,  if  we  take  as 
much  pains  in  private  with  what  we  are  doing  as  in  pub- 
lic before  witnesses.  A  fifth  is,  if  we  are  not  jealous 
either  of  associating  others  with  our  works,  or  of  their 
equal  or  greater  success. 

We  do  our  works  in  the  presence  of  God,  which  is  the 
second  grace  the  perfection  of  our  ordinary  actions  re- 
quires, when  we  practise  the  presence  of  God  while  we  do 
them.  There  are  six  ways  of  practising  the  presence  of  God 
which  are  given  in  books,  and  from  which  souls  should  select 
those  which  are  most  suited  to  them,  but  not  try  to  practise 
more  than  one.  The  first  is  to  try  to  realize  God  as  He 
is  in  heaven.  The  second  to  regard  ourselves  in  Him  as 
in  His  immensity.  The  third  to  look  at  each  creature  as 
if  it  were  a  sacrament  having  God  hidden  under  it.  The 
fourth  is  to  think  of  Him  and  see  Him  by  pure  faith. 
The  fifth  to  look  at  Him  as  in  ourselves,  rather  than  out- 
side of  us,  though  He  is  both.  And  the  sixth  is  to  gra- 
vitate towards  Him  by  an  habitual  loving  mindfulness  of 
heart,  a  kind  of  instinct  which  is  no  uncommon  growth 
of  prayer,  and  comes  sooner  than  would  be  expected, 
when  men  strive  to  serve  God  out  of  the  single  motive  of 
holy  love. 

The  third  requisite  for  the  perfection  of  our  ordinary 
actions  is  that  we  should  do  them  in  the  sight  of  Jesus, 
that  is,  to  use  the  words  of  the  missal,  by  Christ,  with 
Christ,  and  in  Christ.  To  do  our  actions  by  Christ  is  to 
do  them  in  dependence  upon  Him,  as  He  did  everything 


468  DISTRACTIONS   AND   THEIR   REMEDIES. 

in  dependence  on  His  Father  and  by  the  movements  of 
His  Spirit.  To  do  our  actions  with  Christ  is  to  practise 
the  same  virtues  as  our  Lord,  to  clothe  ourselves  with  the 
same  dispositions,  and  to  act  from  the  same  intentions^ 
all  according  to  the  measure  of  the  lowliness  of  our  possi- 
bilities. To  do  our  actions  in  Christ  is  to  unite  ours  with 
His,  and  to  offer  them  to  God  along  with  His,  so  that  for 
the  sake  of  His  they  may  be  accepted  on  high. 

This  is  a  good  old-fashioned  French  method  of  per- 
fecting our  ordinary  actions,  and  not  so  hard  as  at  first 
sight  it  seems  to  be.  To  try  and  combat  our  distractions 
when  the  time  of  prayer  has  come,  is  like  speaking  reason 
to  a  seditious  multitude.  What  I  have  said  is  not  perhaps 
satisfactory.  It  is  hard  to  be  told  that  we  cannot  shake 
off  altogether  a  yoke  so  degrading  and  so  wearisome. 
But  will  facts  warrant  me  in  promising  more  ?  No  man 
ehort  of  a  real  contemplative  will  ever  reign  like  a  despot 
over  his  vast  hordes  of  distractions.  He  is  a  happy  man, 
and  has  done  much,  who  has  set  up  a  constitutional 
monarchy  among  them. 


LUKEWARMNESS. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

LUKEWARMNESS. 

Bellecio  in  his  treatise  on  Solid  Virtue  puts  .uko» 
warmness  almost  at  the  very  commencement.  This  has 
always  seemed  to  me  an  inconvenient  arrangement 
Lukewarmness  is  in  no  sense  a  beginning.  We  may  begin 
by  being  cold,  but  not  by  being  lukewarm.  For  luke- 
warmness implies  that  a  great  deal  has  gone  before,  that 
a  height  has  been  climbed,  and  that  from  cowardice, 
human  respect,  or  weariness,  we  have  come  down  from  it. 
Like  certain  phenomena  in  geology,  it  is  at  once  an 
evidence  of  a  former  state  of  things,  and  of  the  catas- 
trophe which  overthrew  it.  He  who  was  never  fervent 
can  never  be  lukewarm.  Cold  he  may  be,  and  low,  and 
mean,  and  ungenerous,  and  a  poltroon,  but  not  luke- 
warm. 

I  prefer  therefore  to  consider  lukewarmness  in  this 
place,  because  the  knowledge  we  have  now  gained  of  the 
various  appliances  of  the  spiritual  life  will  enable  us  the 
better  to  understand  its  true  nature ;  and  also  because  all 
the  component  parts  of  the  spiritual  life  being  also,  when 
spoiled,  the  component  parts  of  lukewarmness,  this  is  the 
natural  place  it  occupies.  In  fact,  all  that  has  gone  be- 
fore of  struggle,  fatigue,  and  rest,  with  their  helps,  hin- 
drances, phenomena,  and  developments,  issues  simply  in 
one  of  two  states,  lukewarmness  or  fervor.  Either  we 
40 


470  LtJKEWARMNESS. 

are  lukewarm,  or  we  are  fervent.  These  are  the  ends 
of  our  whole  voyage  as  proficients :  either  we  run  on  the 
sandbanks  and  go  to  pieces  at  the  very  base  of  the  light- 
house, or  we  hit  the  mouth  of  the  harbor,  and  lie  suugly 
in  its  deep  water  with  the  mountains  of  God  embracing 
us  on  either  side.  The  rudder  of  the  spiritual  life,  the 
little-seeming  power  which  governs  the  whole  ship,  is  dis- 
cretion. This  turns  us  off  from  the  treacherous  shoal, 
keeps  us  in  the  deep  midway  channel,  and  steers  us  fairly 
into  port.  Hence  my  last  three  chapters  will  naturally 
be  occupied  with  the  consideration  of  lukewarmnesSj 
fervor,  and  discretion. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  spiritual  life  which  arrests  our 
attention  so  forcibly  as  lukewarm ness,  because  of  the  un- 
usual language  in  which  it  has  pleased  God  to  express 
His  ineffable  disgust  with  it,  and  the  startling  doctrine 
which  accompanies  the  declaration  of  His  loathing,  that 
coldness  is  less  offensive  to  Him  than  tepidity.  Who  is 
it  then  with  whom  God  is  so  exceedingly  displeased,  that 
He  is  sick  of  His  own  redeemed  creature  ?  We  tremble 
at  the  answer.  It  is  the  man,  who  is  patient  when  he 
has  nothing  to  suffer,  who  is  gentle  while  he  is  uncon- 
tradicted, who  is  humble  when  men  leave  his  honor  un- 
touched, who  wishes  to  be  a  saint  without  the  trouble  of 
it,  who  seeks  to  acquire  virtues  without  mortification,  who 
is  willing  to  do  many  things,  but  not  to  take  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  by  violence.  Alas !  here  are  verified  the  dread 
words  of  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles.  The  time  is  that 
judgment  should  begin  at  the  house  of  God.  And  if 
first  at  us,  what  shall  be  the  end  of  those  who  believe 
not   the  gospel  of  God?     And   if  the  just  maa    shall 


LUKEWARMNESS.  471 

scarcely  be  saved,  where  shall  the  wicked  and  the  sinnei 
appear  ?* 

The  diseases  and  evils  of  the  body  are,  as  might  be 
expected,  seeing  they  are  the  immediate  outflowings  of 
siu,  in  a  great  degree  typical  of  the  miseries  and  mis- 
fortunes of  the  soul.  If  we  seek  the  correlative  of  hike- 
warmness,  we  shall  find  it  in  blindness.  It  is  a  blindness 
which  does  not  know  even  its  own  self,  and  does  not  sus- 
pect that  it  is  blind,  or  that  other  men  see  better  than 
itself.  It  is  a  judicial  blindness,  because  it  once  saw 
better  itself,  and  now  does  not  remember  either  what  it 
saw,  or  that  it  ever  saw  at  all.  It  is  usual  to  consider 
that  this  blindness  is  owing  principally  to  three  causes, 
the  frequency  of  venial  sins,  habitual  dissipation  of  mind, 
and  the  ruling  passion.  The  frequency  of  venial  sins  is 
like  travelling  in  the  wilderness,  where  the  bright  air  is 
imperceptibly  filled  with  fine  sand.  Habitual  dissipation 
of  mind  is  like  reading  in  the  sunshine,  and  living  in  a 
light  too  strong  for  our  eyes.  The  ruling  passion  is  an 
external  violence  which  menaces  us,  and  makes  us  shut 
our  eyes,  and  have  them  always  shut,  that  we  may  not 
see  what  it  would  fain  hide,  and  so  when  we  open  them 
after  long  being  used  to  darkness,  it  is  the  very  light  it- 
self which  blinds  us. 

The  immediate  results  of  this  blindness  are  three  also. 
In  the  first  place  conscience  becomes  untrue.  The  bodv 
does  not  move  firmly  and  in  a  straight  line  in  the  dark 
So  the  conscience  also  must  see  in  order  to  keep  its 
balance.  But  if  we  falsify  the  oracle,  and  still  believe 
it,  what  is  the  consequence  but  error  and  corruption 
everjwhere?      If  the  light  that  is  in   us  be  darkness, 

*  1  S.  Peter  iv.  17. 


172  LUKEWARMNESS. 

6ays  our  Lord,  how  great  is  that  darkness!  So  first 
there  comes  a  false  conscience.  But  in  proportion  as 
conscience  becomes  dark,  and  so  cold,  and  finally  numb, 
in  the  same  proportion  the  bad  instincts  of  the  human 
spirit,  like  owls  at  night,  get  more  far-sighted,  animated, 
and  vivacious.  These  instincts  lead  us  with  uncommon 
tact  to  avoid  anything  which  will  restore  animation  to  the 
conscience.  For  their  purpose  it  had  best  remain  under 
chloroform  for  life.  Thus  they  make  us  shrink  from  any- 
thing like  vigorous  spiritual  direction.  We  suspect  we 
shall  be  awakened,  and  driven,  and  made  too  good. 
Discretion,  that  is,  the  discretion  of  the  blind  conscience, 
tells  us  this  shrinking  is  wisdom  and  sagacity.  We  must, 
it  says,  be  moderate  in  everything,  but  of  all  things 
amazingly  moderate  in  the  love  of  God.  So  in  hear- 
ing sermons,  reading  books,  cultivating  acquaintances, 
patronizing  works  of  mercy,  it  draws  back  from  every- 
thing that  is  likely  to  come  too  near  or  hit  too  hard.  It 
is  the  old  story  of  the  earthen  jug  and  the  brazen  jar,  as 
they  went  down  the  stream  together.  Here  is  the  second 
result  of  this  blindness,  which  renders  the  cure  still  less 
likely.  Indeed  it  is  a  characteristic  of  tepidity,  that 
everything  we  do  while  we  are  in  that  state,  has  a  ten- 
dency to  confirm  us  as  incurable.  Out  of  the  two  pre- 
ceding results  flows  a  third,  which  is  a  profane  use  of 
the  sacraments.  To  go  to  Holy  Communion  when  we  are 
physically  drowsy,  yawning,  and  half  asleep,  or  to  make 
our  general  confession  half  stupefied  with  laudanum, 
would  be  fair  types  of  the  way  in  which  we  morally  use 
the  sacraments.  Thus  frequent  or  even  daily  Communion 
seems  to  have  only  a  negative  effect  upon  us.  We  do 
not  knew  how  bad  we  might  be  without  it;  and  that  is 


LUKEWARMNESS.  473 

all.  Weekly  confession  gives  us  no  additional  powef 
over  our  commonest  imperfections.  Matters  look  as  if 
they  had  come  to  a  stand-still,  if  there  were  any  such 
phase  of  the  spiritual  life.  But  no!  we  are  blind  men 
whose  faces  have  been  turned  unwittingly.  We  are 
retracing  our  steps;  and  the  only  wonder  is,  that  the 
easier  task  of  going  down  hill,  does  not  by  its  contrast 
make  us  suspicious  of  some  mistake.  Alas!  we  are 
asleep  as  well  as  blind.  The  finest  things  we  do  now 
are  no  better  than  feats  of  somnambulism. 

It  is  plain  from  this  description  that  what  is  of  the 
greatest  practical  utility  in  this  matter  of  lukewarmness, 
is  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  symptoms  by  which 
the  insidious  disease  allows  itself  to  be  detected.  These 
are  seven  in  number;  and  according  as  we  perceive  that 
we  unite  them  in  ourselves,  either  in  number  or  degree, 
so  we  have  reason  painfully  to  doubt  whether  our  spiritual 
eyesight  is  not  failing.  The  first  mark  is  a  great  facility 
in  omitting  our  exercises  of  piety,  which  is  the  exact 
contradictory  of  fervor.  Every  one  has  his  routine  of 
pious  exercises ;  and  there  are  few  days  in  which  they  do 
not  entail  upon  us  some  little  inconveniences.  Perhaps 
it  is  one  of  their  special  uses  to  do  this,  especially  if 
habitual  distractions  are  going  to  make  the  exercise  itself 
of  small  value.  Now  these  little  inconveniences  suggest 
dispensations,  or  at  least  delays,  which  we  see  confusedly 
will  turn  out  dispensations  at  the  last.  Clearly  there  are 
cases  in  which  conflicting  duties  or  the  needs  of  charity 
will  interfere,  and  it  will  be  more  perfect  to  give  way  to 
them  than  to  read  or  meditate.  But  most  often  the  in- 
conveniences concern  only  ourselves.  We  have  the  power 
to  dispense  ourselves ;  and  we  grant  these  dispensations 
40* 


474  LUKEWARMNESS. 

either  rarely  and  with  reluctance,  or  often  and  with  facility 
If  the  latter  be  the  case,  behold  the  first  mark  of  tepidity ! 
I  do  not  say  that  by  itself  it  proves  everything ;  but  it 
proves  much.  At  all  events,  wherever  there  is  luke- 
warmness,  there  also  is  this  symptom.  But  we  are  not 
only  easy  in  omitting  exercises  of  piety,  we  are  negligent 
in  those  which  we  do  perform.  We  care  more  about  the 
fact  of  going  through  them,  than  the  manner  or  the  spi- 
rit of  it.  Thus  our  prayers  rise  to  heaven  with  an  equi- 
page of  venial  sins  in  attendance  upon  them,  and  the 
angels  are  reluctant  witnesses  of  our  confessions  and  com- 
munions. This  is  a  second  symptom.  Here  is  a  third. 
The  soul  feels  not  altogether  right  with  God.  It  does 
not  exactly  know  what  is  wrong;  but  it  is  sure  all  is  not 
right.  It  casts  about  to  see.  It  quarrels  with  every- 
thing it  does,  and  questions  each  of  them,  and  yet  the 
mischief  eludes  it.  It  is  angry  with  its  confessions ;  yet 
it  is  not  easy  to  settle  how  to  amend  them.  Something 
always  seems  unexpressed,  something  left  behind  which 
ought  to  have  come  out  and  does  not.  What  is  it  ? 
Then  the  communions  are  overhauled  in  a  similar  way, 
the  examens  of  conscience  tortured,  meditations  repri- 
manded, spiritual  books  cashiered,  together  with  a  deter- 
mination to  reform  everything.  General  orders  are  issued 
from  self's  head-quarters,  in  which  strong  things  are  said 
ambiguously.  Every  one  feels  he  is  aimed  at.  Blame 
lies  everywhere.  Yet  all  to  no  purpose.  At  last  when 
we  have  given  the  matter  up,  we  suddenly  come  upon 
the  offending  thing,  just  as  we  look  for  a  lost  article  till 
we  are  hot  and  tired,  and  then  all  at  once  see  it  lying  in 
open  day  in  a  spot  we  have  searched  four  or  five  times 
before.     Now  when  we  have  this  feeling  of   not  being 


LUKEWARMNESS.  475 

altogether  right  with  God,  and  yet  will  not  vigorously 
face  the  inquiry,  and  make  the  disturbance  I  have  de- 
scribed, and  buckle  to  the  triple  task  of  discovery,  punish- 
ment, and  reformation,  it  is  a  symptom  of  our  being  luke- 
warm. 

A  fourth  symptom  of  lukewarmness  is  an  habitual 
acting  without  any  intention  at  all,  good,  bad,  or  indiffer- 
ent, of  which  I  spoke  in  the  preceding  chapter.  A  fifth 
is  a  carelessness  about  forming  habits  of  virtue.  This  is 
the  opposite  of  the  inordinate  appetite  for  self-improve- 
ment already  considered;  the  truth  lying  here,  as  it 
mostly  does  in  spiritual  matters,  in  a  mean.  A  sixth 
symptom  is  a  contempt  of  little  things  and  of  daily  oppor- 
tunities. This  is  a  necessary  part  of  our  blindness.  We 
can  only  despise  little  things  because  we  do  not  discern 
ihe  capabilities  of  glorifying  God,  and  advancing  our  own 
spiritual  interests,  which  they  contain.  The  seventh  and 
last  symptom  is  a  thinking  rather  of  the  good  we  have 
done  than  of  the  good  we  have  left  undone,  resting  on 
the  past  rather  than  striving  for  the  future,  loving  to  look 
at  people  below  us  rather  than  people  above  us.  Our 
own  ease  and  self-complacency  find  their  account  in  this 
attitude  of  the  soul.  This  is  the  way  in  which  tepidity 
attacks  the  inmates  of  convents.  When  religious  become 
lukewarm,  they  like  to  measure  themselves  with  the  poor 
citizens  of  the  world,  rather  than  with  the  grand  saints 
of  their  own  order.  They  are  ever  calculating  the  sac- 
rifices they  have  made,  and  fondly  realizing  to  themselves 
the  glory  of  their  self-devotion.  When  these  signs  are 
observed,  superiors  recognize  in  them  the  alarming  symp- 
toms of  tepidity.  It  all  lies  in  one  word.  Such  reli 
gious  do,  what  St.  Paul  said  he  did  not  do.     They  count 


476  LTJKEWARMNESS. 

themselves  tc  have  apprehended.*  Brethren,  I  do  not 
count  myself  to  have  apprehended.  But  one  thing  I 
do;  forgetting  the  things  that  are  behind,  and  stretch- 
ing forth  myself  to  those  that  are  before,  I  pursue  to- 
wards the  mark,  for  the  prize  of  the  supernal  vocation 
of  God  in  Christ  Jesus.  Let  us,  therefcre,  as  many  as 
are  perfect,  be  thus  minded. 

From  these  fatal  marks  let  us  pass  to  consider  the  ex- 
traordinary hatred  which  God  has  of  this  state.  These 
things  saith  the  Amen,  the  faithful  and  true  witness,  who 
is  the  beginning  of  the  creation  of  God.  I  know  thy 
works,  that  thou  art  neither  cold  nor  hot.  I  would  thou 
wert  cold  or  hot.  But  because  thou  art  lukewarm,  and 
neither  cold  nor  hot,  I  will  begin  to  vomit  thee  out  of  My 
mouth. ")•  This  passage  is  without  any  parallel  in  Scrip- 
ture. God  not  only  prefers  coldness;  but  he  rejects 
tepidity.  It  turns  him  sick  who  is  eternal  love.  The 
charity  of  the  Heart  of  Jesus,  our  only  home,  cannot 
retain  us.  If  is  disgust  is  too  strong  for  Him  to  resist  it; 
and  He  rejects  us  with  an  unconquerable  nausea  which 
even  redeeming  love  cannot  temper  or  allay.  It  is  a  most 
awful  figure,  and  one  which,  but  for  His  own  word,  we 
should  not  dare  to  have  mentioned  in  the  same  breath  with 
His  adorable  majesty.  How  much  He  must  have  meant 
to  teach  us  by  the  singularity  of  that  terrific  language ! 
Now  God  is  infinitely  just,  therefore  His  hatred  of  this 
state  cannot  be  too  great.  It  is  not  in  his  majesty  to 
exaggerate.  But  He  is  also  infinitely  forbearing,  so  that 
His  punishment  must  be  if  anything  short  of  its  horrible 
deserts.     What  then  must  its  real  horror  be  ? 

But  why  does  He  hate  it  so  ?  Let  us  venture  to  search 
•  Philippious  iii.  13.  f  Apoo.  iii.  14, 15,  16. 


LUKEWARMNESS.  477 

for  reasons.  Because  it  is  a  quiet  intentional  appreciation 
of  other  things  over  God.  It  cheapens  God,  and  parts 
with  Him  second-hand.  Meanwhile,  as  it  is  not  open 
wickedness,  but  is  even  an  open  profession  and  exterioi 
practice  of  His  service,  it  pretends  friendship,  and  takes 
rank  in  the  world  as  one  of  God's  friends ;  and  hence  it 
involves  the  twofold  guilt  of  treachery  and  hypocrisy.  It 
thus  has  a  peculiar  ability  to  wound  God's  glory  by  the 
scandal  it  gives.  It  has  God's  honor  in  its  power,  and 
treats  it  shamefully  and  cruelly.  It  profanes  grace  by 
the  indifference  with  which  it  misuses  it.  It  takes  it  as  a 
right,  and  misapplies  it,  as  a  dishonest  man  spends  money 
on  purposes  for  which  it  was  not  trusted  to  him.  It  is 
taking  a  liberty  with  the  majesty  of  God's  exceeding 
goodness,  which  is  a  terrible  thing  to  do.  It  were  better 
to  play  with  His  thunderbolts,  than  to  make  sport  with 
His  compassions.  And  all  this  is  done  with  knowledge, 
the  double  knowledge  of  God  and  of  evil.  What  wonder 
that  it  turns  God's  whole  being,  and  sours  even  the  sweet- 
ness of  the  Sacred  Heart ! 

A  few  words  on  its  remedies,  and  the  hateful  subject 
may  be  dismissed.  Its  cure  is  immensely  difficult;  St. 
Bernard  would  make  us  almost  despair  of  its  being  curable 
at  all.  Only,  we  made  up  our  minds  at  the  beginning  to 
hold  this  all  through,  that  nothing  is  incurable,  though 
many  things  in  the  spiritual  life  are  nearly  so ;  and  neither 
doctor,  nor  father,  nor  saint,  but  only  the  Pope,  shall 
drive  us  from  this  doctrine.  St.  Bernard  therefore  will 
be  satisfied  if  we  say  that  its  cure  is  immensely  difficult, 
because  all  the  saints  have  said  so,  because  the  evil  is 
unsuspected,  because  even  the  good  is  mixed  with  evil, 


47*  LUKEWARM  NESS. 

because  men  do  not  realize  the  possible  forfeiture  of  grace 
to  keep  precepts  when  they  have  been  playing  fast  and 
loose  with  counsels,  and  because,  as  St.  Theresa  teaches, 
for  some  souls  perfection  is  accidentally  necessary  even 
for  their  salvation ! 

How  absurd  it  seems  to  mention  the  feeble  remedies  t 
The  first  is  to  quicken  faith  by  meditation  on  eternal 
truths,  so  as  to  possess  our  minds  -habitually  with  their 
overwhelming  importance  and  their  exacting  purity.  The 
second  is,  not  having  so  many  things  to  do.  It  is  no  use. 
The  times  are  busy.  But  we  cannot  save  our  souls  if  we 
have  so  many  things  to  do.  But  the  remedy?  Good 
soul !  there  are  some  knots  in  life  which  cannot  be  untied ; 
the  thing  is  to  cut  them,  and  leave  the  consequences  to 
help  themselves.  If  you  have  more  duties  to  do  than 
you  can  do  well,  you  must  boldly  neglect  some  of  them. 
Only  have  faith,  and  God  will  spirit  the  consequences 
away,  so  that  you  will  see  nothing  more  of  them.  The 
third  remedy  is  the  practice  of  silence,  not  in  any  offensive 
or  singular  way,  but  proportionably  to  our  state  of  life. 
The  fourth  is  to  persevere  in  our  spiritual  exercises  in 
spite  of  dryness  and  distractions ;  and  the  fifth,  which  is 
nearer  a  specific  than  any  of  the  others,  is  a  habit  of 
mortification,  not  interior,  but  exterior.  The  interior  will 
look  out  for  itself  when  its  time  comes.  Just  now  I  want 
the  flesh  to  suffer.  If  you  turn  away  from  this  I  give  you 
up.  It  is  the  quinine  for  your  ague.  Alas  !  alas  !  what 
does  all  this  come  to  but  the  admission  that  the  only  sure 
remedy  for  lukewarmness  is  never  to  be  lukewarm,  an 
Dracle  worthy  of  the  pompous  physician  of  the  old  comedy  ? 
Set  does  it  not  in  reality  say  a  great  deal  ? 


LTJKEWARMNESR.  479 

1  fear  this  evil  of  lukewarmness  is  very  common,  and 
that  at  this  moment,  it  is  gnawing  the  life  out  of  many 
souls  who  suspect  not  its  presence  there  It  is  a  great 
grace,  a  prophecy  of  a  miraculous  cure,  to  find  out  that 
we  are  lukewarm  ;  but  we  are  lost  if  wt  do  not  act  with 
vigor,  the  momeni  we  make  this  triguteuing  discovery. 
It  is  like  going  to  sleep  in  tb-»  snow,  almost  a  plea?«rl 
tingling  feeling  at  the  first,  antf  khen, — l<j*«  r'jr  tv* 


FERVOR. 


CHAPTER  XXVJ. 

FERVOR. 

Fervor  is  the  state  of  the  saints  on  earth,  and  in  one 
Bense  of  the  blessed  in  heaven ;  and  in  its  degree,  it  ought 
to  be  the  normal  state  of  all  who  are  aiming  at  perfec- 
tion. It  is  at  once  the  growth  of  holiness,  and  the 
strength  by  which  holiness  grows.  Every  chapter  hitherto 
has  tended  to  this,  and  to  avoid  recapitulation,  I  shall 
confine  myself  now  to  conveying  a  clear  idea  of  genuine 
fervor.  This  seems  what  is  most  wanted.  How  few 
could  define  fervor  if  they  were  asked  ! 

Fervor,  considered  as  a  state,  is  a  similitude  to  God. 
It  is  equable  like  God.  It  is  moderate  like  God.  It  is 
hidden  like  God,  only  escaping  to  view  by  its  own  irre- 
pressible excellence.  It  is  silent  like  God.  Praise  is  in 
no  way  its  food,  neither  is  it  desirable  for  it.  It  thinks 
long  before  acting,  as  God  condescends  to  seem  as  if  He 
also  did.  It  is  unanxious  about  results,  which  is  one  of 
the  marvels  of  God.  And  it  is  fiery  like  God,  consuming 
obstacles,  and  its  very  power  causing  it  to  make  no  noise. 
We  must  meditate  separately  on  each  of  these  clauses,  if 
we  would  gain  a  clear  notion  of  fervor. 

Fervor  acts  in  the  practical  spiritual  life  as  might  be 
expected  from  the  above  description.  It  has  no  fits  and 
starts.  It  is  never  run  away  with  by  a  new  idea.  It 
never  boils  over,  and  puts  the  fire  out,  that  is,  it  never 


FERVOR.  481 

quenches  the  Holy  Spirit  by  indiscretion.  It  is  not  eager 
for  heroic  opportunities,  though  it  expatiates  magnificently 
on  them  when  it  has  them.  It  is  a  stable  vital  force  in 
the  soul,  thrusting  its  way  with  uniform  power  and  noise- 
less pressure.  Common  trivial  things  persevered  in  and 
animated  by  an  unremitting  attention,  these  are  its  de- 
light, and  the  infallible  proofs  both  of  its  presence  and 
its  power.  As  a  graceful  person  walks  or  stoops  or  stands 
gracefully,  and  whatever  he  does  is  done  with  a  grace,  so 
pure  charity  is  the  gracefulness  of  fervor.  It  is  punctual 
as  it  were  spontaneously  and  by  nature.  It  omits  nothing, 
anticipates  nothing,  defers  nothing.  When  time  is  lost, 
it  can  make  it  up  without  precipitation,  and  without  com- 
pressing, or  elbowing,  or  dislodging  other  duties.  Its 
conduct  is  a  sort  of  mirror,  upon  whose  faultless  crystal, 
eternity  and  heaven  and  the  likeness  of  God  are  forever 
unbrokenly  imaged,  beautiful  to  see,  commonplace  as  the 
commonest  daily  life,  and  yet  enchanting  as  a  fairy  tale, 
and  heroic  as  the  old  apostolic  days.  Its  smile  is  sweet 
and  serene,  like  an  angel's.  It  can  be  angry,  but  beau- 
tifully, divinely,  attractively.  But  it  cannot  frown ;  it  is 
bo  flooded  with  inward  peace  it  has  lost  the  power.  It 
cannot  brood  sadly  or  gloomily ;  for  its  nature  is  as  that 
of  the  undulations  of  light.  It  is  sweet  to  the  taste  as 
well  as  bright  to  the  eye,  and  it  makes  music  as  it  undu- 
lates, and  it  smells  of  the  flowers  of  Eden.  It  is  as  if 
the  savor  of  the  Fall  had  never  passed  upon  it,  as  the 
odor  of  fire  passed  not  on  the  garments  of  the  Three 
Children.  It  is  the  only  thing  in  the  world  that  is  in 
perfect  keeping  and  proportion ;  for  it  bears  a  proportion 
in  its  conduct  to  the  claims  of  God  upon  the  soul.  This 
is  what  makes  its  beauty  austere.  It  is  one  of  the  an- 
41  2F 


482  FERVOR 

fciques,  an  antique  of  the  Christian  deserts,  of  the  old 
monasteries,  of  the  palaces  whose  kings  wore  sackcloth 
beneath  their  ermine.  We  could  adore  it,  it  is  so  beau- 
tiful and  godlike;  were  it  not  that  it  says  to  us  with  the 
angel  in  the  Apocalypse,  See  thou  do  it  not  j  for  I  am 
thy  fellow-servant,  and  of  thy  brethren  who  have  the  tes» 
timony  of  Jesus.* 

What  are  the  fruits  of  this  fervor  ?  Eye  has  not  seen, 
nor  ear  heard,  nor  heart  of  man  conceived.  The  va- 
riegated splendors  of  heaven,  the  riches  of  the  treasures 
at  God's  Right  Hand,  those  are  the  golden  fruits  of  its 
eternal  autumn.  It  does  no  more  than  bloom  here ;  but 
its  blossoms  are  more  healing  than  the  fruits  of  other 
things.  An  infusion  of  their  leaves  is  the  wine,  the 
medicine,  and  the  nutriment  of  the  soul.  First  of  all 
they  give  us  courage,  a  courage  to  go  even  beyond  nature, 
and  to  keep  up  the  fight  when  by  the  laws  of  our  being 
we  should  have  yielded.  So  that  we  may  resemble  our 
dearest  Lord,  who  supported  Himself  supernaturally  to 
suffer,  and  made  Himself  live  by  miracle  in  order  to  love 
and  suffer  more,  and  drank  many  a  cup  of  various  bitter- 
ness to  the  dregs,  when  those  that  had  gone  before  would 
naturally  have  brought  about  His  death.  Fervor  gives 
us  a  self-distrust  because  of  the  deep  Irnowledge  it 
conveys  to  us  of  the  nature  of  divine  grace,  and  of  our- 
selves. Mortification,  which  is  a  mountain  of  toil  to  the 
cold  and  lukewarm,  is  to  fervor  a  relief  and  a  necessity. 
It  is  the  ordinary  safety-valve,  by  which  it  allows  its  fires 
to  escape,  which  otherwise  would  shrivel  what  they  ought 
only  to  mature.  When  St.  Francis  of  Sales  came  to  die, 
his  last  lesson,  the  crowning  part  of  his  long,  deep,  fiery, 

*  Apoc.  xix.  10. 


ffEfcvoft.  483 

beautiful  wisdom,  was  Ask  nothing  and  refuse  nothing 
This  is  a  short,  perhaps  inspired,  definition  of  fervor.  It 
is  the  "  holy  iniifference"  of  St.  Ignatius  become  domes- 
ticated as  a  permanent  majestic  habit  of  the  soul.  It  has 
no  choice ;  it  takes  things  as  God  sends  them.  This  is 
the  most  enviable  part  of  its  loveliness.  Yet  strange  to 
say,  by  a  secret  of  its  own,  it  knows  how  to  combine  with 
this  almost  passive  tranquillity  the  two  apparently  con- 
tradictory excellencies  of  being  immediate  and  uninter- 
mitting.  It  is  swift  as  lightning.  It  darts  on  its  duties, 
like  the  rapid  noiseless  hawk,  and  is  down,  and  up  again 
poised  in  air,  so  that  our  eyes  doubt  if  in  truth  we  saw 
its  descent  and  its  rising  again.  And  it  holds  on  its 
course  like  the  smooth  earth  turning  day  and  night  on  its 
unseen  axle  Thus  immediately  and  untiredly  it  works 
at  present  duties ;  and  thus  immediately  and  untiredly  it 
loses  no  time  between  duties.  I  believe  it  sees  God,  and 
is  always  copying,  within  its  sublime  possibilities,  the 
gracious  mysteries  of  the  Divine  Nature. 

Are  there  any  rocks  upon  which  fervor  can  make  ship- 
wreck ?  No !  it  would  cease  to  be  fervor  before  it  could 
run  on  a  rock ;  for  it  would  see  visible  rocks,  and  it  would 
divine  sunken  rocks,  and  would  never  neglect  its  chart. 
But  there  is  a  false  fervor  which  is  always  running  on 
rocks,  and  we  may  know  it  by  the-  rocks  it  runs  upon. 
It  is  a  history  of  ship-wrecks  from  first  to  last.  There  is 
a  fervor,  which  looks  fine,  and  seemingly  sails  well,  but 
when  it  has  caught  the  wind  full  in  its  sails,  it  begins 
judging  others  both  in  thought  and  word,  imputing 
motives,  and  criticizing  the  navigation  of  its  neighbors. 
In  a  moment  you  hear  the  dull  sound  of  the  strike.  With 
what  a  monf  en  turn  she  went  upon  the  rocks !     And  now 


484  FERVOR. 

the  harmless  summer  sea,  whose  fault  the  disaster  eauU 
in  no  wise  be  accounted,  is  covered  with  the  shivered 
timbers  of  a  broken  and  lost  spiritual  life.  There  is 
another  fervor,  like  that  of  the  Pharisee's  prayer,  which 
consists  more  in  the  contempt  of  others,  than  in  a  loving 
hatred  of  ourselves.  This  contempt  is  a  very  commor 
habit  of  mind  in  these  days,  and  nothing  can  be  mora 
incompatible  with  spirituality.  There  is  a  third  fervor, 
which  is  the  intoxication  of  a  weak  head  and  a  vain  will 
with  one  or  more  spiritual  ideas,  and  the  result  of  which 
is  a  little  crude  practice  of  mortification  with  a  very  abun- 
dant spirit  of  reforming  things,  persons,  places,  domestio 
circles  and  institutes.  A  fourth  fervor  is  the  singularity 
of  a  very  active  but  one-sided  and  self-sufficient  mind. 
And  a  fifth  is  the  mere  life  of  changeableness,  with  its 
prolific  plans,  superficial  rapidity,  and  loudness  of  brief 
and  brittle  purposes.  These  are  sometimes  called  the 
rocks  on  which  fervor  strikes  and  makes  shipwreck  of  it- 
self. But  it  is  surely  more  true  to  say  that  they  are 
counterfeit  fervors,  which  have  nothing  in  common  with 
the  austere  and  beautiful  thing  which  we  are  considering. 
Yet  genuine  fervor  has  most  unjustly  to  bear  the  burden 
of  their  misdoings.  Hence  the  scandal  which  these  indis- 
creet fervors  give,  which  would  be  no  scandals  if  they 
were  known  to  be  what  they  really  are.  They  assume 
principles  which  do  not  belong  to  them.  They  wear 
oorrowed  clothes  and  call  themselves  by  other  persons' 
lames ;  and  then  by  their  vagaries  fatigue  all  good  people 
<n  their  neighborhood.  It  is  these  false  fervors  which 
briDg  piety  into  disesteem,  as  well  by  their  obtrusiveness, 
as  by  their  inconsistencies  and  inequalities.  With  them 
everything  is  exaggerated,  doctrine,  practice,  ritual,  and 


FERVOR.  485 

mortification.  They  are  ruled  by  the  spirit  of  publicity. 
They  deal  in  broad  principles  and  round  assertions.  They 
like  to  differ  from  all  around  them,  while  agreeing  is 
tame  and  uninteresting.  They  present  to  people  an  image 
of  God  without  His  beauty ;  and  what  can  be  more  terrible 
than  this,  which  is  the  opposite  of  all  He  has  ever  been 
pleased  to  do  Himself?  Counterfeit  fervors,  unlike  most 
other  counterfeits,  copy  nothing  in  their  original  but  its 
fires.  In  all  other  things  they  are  in  even  verbal  con- 
tradiction to  it.  And  yet  how  sad  to  think  that  true 
fervor,  all  in  celestial  armor  clad,  grave,  tranquil,  majes- 
tic, serene,  establishing  everywhere  the  royalties  of  God 
in  the  human  soul,  should  have  to  bear  the  burden  of  the 
wild  and  puerile  furies  of  half-converted,  half-cleansed, 
and  not  so  good  as  half-humbled  souls ! 

I  said  I  would  confine  myself  to  conveying  a  clear  idea 
of  genuine  fervor.  If  I  have  also  given  a  picture  of  these 
caricatures  of  fervor,  it  is  to  make  the  true  idea  clearer. 
I  have  now  three  observations  to  make,  to  which  some 
importance  is  to  be  attached. 

First,  it  is  a  common  idea  that  fervor  is  part  of  our 
training,  part  of  our  noviciate,  something  by  the  help  of 
which  we  get  out  of  certain  difficulties;  and  when  wo 
have  done  with  it,  it  passes  in  its  turn.  Every  one  has 
it,  or  ought  to  have  it,  as  children  should  have  the  measles, 
and  it  goes  from  one  to  another  doing  its  work,  with  more 
or  less  success.  This  I  think  is  a  not  uncommon  idea  of 
fervor.  We  must  take  this  then  as  our  first  fixed  point 
about  the  doctrine  of  fervor,  that  it  is,  not  a  transient 
thing  which  does  a  work  and  passes  off;  but  that  it  is  a 
permanent  state;  nay,  that  its  whole  essence  is  in  its 
41* 


486  FERVOR. 

permanence,  and  that  it  has  the  fewest  alternations  of 
any  state  which  is  known  to  human  fragility  and  incon 
stancy. 

Secondly,  fervor  is  a  tried  state ;  and  therefore  not  to 
be  confounded  with  the  effervescence  of  conversion.  This 
last  is  essentially  transient.  It  comes  with  a  commission, 
and  goes  when  it  is  executed.  Nevertheless,  we  must 
not  think  lightly  of  this  effervescence,  or,  as  it  is  some- 
times called,  our  first  fervors.  They  came  to  us  from 
God,  and  were  freighted  with  a  hundred  benedictions. 
They  were  young,  perhaps,  and  their  zeal  was  indis- 
creet, and  their  taste  questionable,  and  their  conceit 
unquestionable.  But  amid  it  all  there  was  a  sweet 
power  of  God,  which  neither  reverence  nor  gratitude  will 
permit  us  now  to  despise.  What  God  has  once  touched 
is  sanctified.  Never  let  us  speak  lightly,  or  think  lightly, 
of  what  God  once  made  a  channel  of  grace,  even  if  it  were 
in  our  darkest  days.  0  how  many  of  us  may  have  cause 
to  look  wistfully  back  even  to  the  rawness  of  those  begin, 
nings,  and  to  pine  for  a  purity  of  intention  and  a  sim- 
plicity of  affectionate  good-will  which  now  perhaps  is  far 
from  us,  and  nothing  better  come  in  its  stead !  Those 
first  fervors  do  not  come  twice.  If  we  have  not  used 
them,  we  have  abused  them.  If  they  have  gone  and  left 
their  work  undone,  nothing  will  do  it  now.  We  must  be 
the  worse  for  the  want  of  their  work  to  the  last  day  of 
life.  It  is  as  if  an  angel  had  come  to  us,  and  had  gone, 
and  left  no  blessing  because  we  were  not  humble  enough 
to  ask  one.  But  we  may  come  to  have  genuine  fervor 
without  having  had  them.  It  is  like  the  sweetness  which 
the  maturity  of  sorrow  gives  to  the  Christian  soul  com- 
pared with  the  sweetness  of  sunny  generous  youth      It 


FERVOR.  48? 

h  4  come  out  of  trial.     It  has  learned  secrets.     It  has 
washed  its  robes  in  the  Blood  of  the  Lamb. 

Thirdly,  by  some  perversity  of  mind  men  will  always 
picture  fervor  to  themselves  as  something  which  is  about 
tc  cool  down.  It  were  truer  to  deem  of  it  as  ever  on  the 
increase.  For  it  is  the  characteristic  of  fervor  to  be 
always  augmenting,  and  to  increase  with  very  visible  yet 
still  tranquil  rapidity  towards  death,  just  as  a  stone  seek- 
ing its  centre  grows  rapid  and  impetuous  as  it  nears  it. 
We  may  prophesy  death  sometimes  by  the  way  fervor 
sucks  us  in  and  overwhelms  us  with  divine  love.  0  that 
we  may  feel  it  so,  as  body  weakens,  as  ailments  multiply, 
as  sorrows  bend  our  backs,  and  pains  increase ;  so  that  we 
may  pass  out  of  the  world,  not  cold,  not  lukewarm,  not 
seeming  to  hang  on  to  God  by  threads  of  grace  or  a  timely 
sacrament,  but  all  in  a  glow  of  spiritual  health  and  love, 
a  sweet  purgatory  which  will  carry  us  clear  over  that 
painful  one  which  lies  beyond  the  grave,  and  is  so  tedi<raa 
Mid  so  siow  in  its  sacred  operation*  1 


488  DISCRETION. 


CHAPTER  XXVH. 

DISCRETION. 

A  postscript  on  the  rudder  of  our  spiritual  ship,  and 
my  work  is  done.  There  is  a  well-known  story  that  at  a 
conference  of  monks  in  the  old  times,  when  different  holy 
men  had  said  which  virtue  they  thought  the  highest,  and 
for  what  reasons,  the  great  St.  Antony  decided  in  favor 
of  discretion,  because  it  moderated  all  the  other  virtues 
St.  Joseph  is  the  most  perfect  model  of  this  virtue,  and 
all  spiritual  writers  agree  that  it  would  not  be  easy  to 
exaggerate  its  excellence.  It  may  briefly  be  defined  to  be 
Persevering  Love. 

It  is  too  often  the  case  that  a  thing  is  best  described 
by  a  description  of  its  opposite ;  and  in  this  instance  1 
must  partly  illustrate  discretion  by  examples  of  indiscre- 
tion, if  not  mainly  so.  First,  therefore,  I  shall  speak  of 
doing  too  much,  secondly  of  doing  too  little,  and  thirdly, 
of  the  manner  of  what  we  do. 

First  of  doing  too  much.  I  do  not  mean  too  much  for 
God,  but  too  much  for  our  grace  to  bear,  or  our  courage 
to  sustain.  Nothing  can  be  too  much,  for  nothing  can  be 
enough,  for  God.  But  our  grace  is  limited.  God  calls 
each  one  to  a  certain  height  and  no  higher;  and  although 
we  can  never  know  to  what  height  we  shall  reach  before 
we  dvi,  yet  still  at  each  step  grace  is  dealt  out  to  us  by 


DISCRETION.  489 

measure,  and  we  must  be  careful  not  u)  run  beyond  our 
present  grace.  Grace  does  not  do  away  with  either  our 
weakness  or  our  cowardice.  We  must  not  give  way  to 
them,  but  we  must  take  them  into  our  calculations,  and 
not  only  allow  for  them  but  give  them  liberal  allowance. 
Mortification  is  a  matter  in  which  an  honest  will  may  bo 
carried  away  by  mere  natural  motives  and  may  do  too 
much ;  and  this  applies  equally  both  to  interior  and  ex- 
terior  mortification.  Discretion  bids  us  keep  in  mind  that 
mortification  is  always  a  means  and  never  an  end.  It 
tells  us  that  discontinued  mortifications  are  the  very  bane 
of  spirituality.  No  man  undertakes  to  do  a  thing  for 
God,  and  lays  it  aside  because  he  finds  perseverance  in 
it  too  much  for  him,  without  his  soul  being  seriously 
damaged  by  it.  He  has  taken  up  a  disadvantageous 
position.  This  is  not  a  reason  for  not  trying,  but  it  is  a 
reason  for  trying  soberly,  discreetly,  and  with  delibera- 
tion. Discretion  will  have  mortification  free  from  the 
slightest  blemish  of  singularity.  It  will  have  charity  to 
others  lord  paramount  of  all  self-denials  and  austerities. 
It  gives  the  relative  duties  of  our  states,  that  eighth 
sacrament  as  I  have  called  them,  precedence  over  them; 
and  when  mortification  wears  out  our  good  temper,  and 
makes  us  short  and  snappish,  discretion  would  have  us 
after  a  little  trial  lose  our  penance  rather  than  our  temper. 
In  our  prayers  and  spiritual  exercises  discretion  will 
have  us  moderate  and  tranquil,  and  all  things  in  due 
keepi'ng  with  our  state  of  life.  It  allows  of  no  eagerness 
or  anxiety.  It  condemns  all  inordinate  pursuits,  even 
though  the  acquisition  of  virtue  be  the  object  of  them, 
and  it  equally  prohibits  all  greediness  of  spiritual  favors. 


490  DISCRETION. 

It  takes  out  of  our  bauds  books  wbicb  ire  too  bigb  for 
us,  as  scrupulous  and  disturbing.  It  watebes  over  a  voca- 
tion as  if  it  were  its  enemy;  for  to  commit  ourselves  to 
a  way  of  life  in  whicb  we  cannot  persevere,  is  like  doing 
something  which  will  make  us  bed-ridden  all  our  days. 
And  when  discretion  has  taught  us  all  this,  it  adds  that 
everything  combines  to  show  that  we  must  either  take 
council  in  the  spiritual  life,  or  give  devotion  up  altogether, 
and  sit  down  acquiescing  in  low  ways  and  little  things. 

The  second  kind  of  indiscretion  consists  in  doing  too 
little,  too  little  for  God,  and  too  little  for  the  grace  He 
has  given  us.  Men  sometimes  make  up  their  minds  that 
they  have  gone  as  far  as  they  intend  to  go  in  the  spiritual 
life,  that  they  have  got  up  to  a  certain  level,  and  do  not 
intend  to  mount  higher.  They  forget  that  God  is  the 
master,  not  themselves;  and  that  their  business  is  to 
follow  the  lead  of  grace,  whithersoever  it  may  take  them. 
Besides,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  level  in  the  spiritual 
life.  All  is  ascent  or  descent,  advance  or  retreat.  What- 
ever is  not  the  first,  is  assuredly  the  last.  The  question 
is  not  what  we  will  do,  but  what  God  will  do.  What 
iudiscretion  can  be  greater  than  to  disobey  God  or  to 
dictate  to  Him  ?  Yet  worldly  people  do  not  like  to  be 
told  this.  They  delight  in  the  admonitions  of  discretion, 
when  they  go  towards  curbing  those  who  do  too  mueh, 
and  they  willingly  make  themselves  missiouers  of  the 
Order  of  St.  Antony  to  preach  his  favorite  virtue.  But 
they  chafe  when  the  same  principles  are  applied  to. doing 
too  little.  Christian  art  represents  St.  Antony  as  followed 
by  a  pig:  the  figure  is  instructive  though  inelegant. 
The  indiscretion  of  being  inconsiderately  generous  with 


DISCRETION  491 

God  is  patent  enough  to  them.  The  indiscretion  of 
being  disobediently  mean  and  close  with  Him  is  neither 
bo  obvious  to  them,  nor  so  readily  acknowledged.  For, 
in  their  vocabulary,  discretion  means  easiness  and  indevo- 
tion,  a  habit  of  surrendering  God  when  the  world  finds 
His  service  inconvenient  to  itself.  Such  men  habitually 
turn  a  deaf  ear  to  inspirations,  suspect  higher  calls,  and 
yet  purposely  will  not  face  them  or  examine  them,  lest 
haply  they  should  be  found  to  be  from  God. 

The  indiscretion  of  all  this  is  manifold  from  the  very 
statement  of  it.  It  angers  God  not  only  by  its  ungene- 
rosity,  but  by  its  irreverence ;  and  it  may  even  endanger 
salvation  by  causing  Him  to  withdraw  from  us  succors 
which  happen  in  our  case  to  be  necessary  to  our  persever- 
ance, but  which  He  is  in  nowise  bound  to  give.  Another 
form  of  this  indiscretion  is  our  modelling  our  conduct  on 
safe  principles,  in  which  we  persevere  even  when  we  have 
perceived  that  they  are  not  the  best  principles,  and  when 
we  have  felt  that  God  is  distinctly  pressing  us  to  a  highei 
line  of  conduct.  In  this  case  the  principles,  however 
safe  in  the  abstract,  cease  to  be  safe  for  us.  They  become 
rash,  heady,  and  self-willed,  and  often  partake  of  the 
repugnant  character  of  lukewarmness.  Thus  in  our 
social  intercourse  we  sometimes  humor  matters,  not  for 
charity's  sake  but  for  peace,  and  we  allow  God  to  be 
slightly  a  sufferer  in  some  encounter  with  the  world.  Our 
high  principles  have  capitulated,  leaving  Him  as  a  hostage 
in  the  hands  of  His  enemies.  This  soon  comes  to  lead  us 
a  step  further.  We  slide  imperceptibly,  so  imperceptibly 
that  we  should  be  shocked  if  we  were  accused  of  it,  into 
making  our  own  ease  and  the  good  opinion  of  men  our 


492  DISCRETION. 

rule,  instead  of  the  will  of  God  and  the  maxims  of  the 
Gospel.  Downward  descents  are  tempting,  and  this  step 
leads  us  lower  still.  We  judge,  interfere,  and  are  veiled 
with  others  who  are  more  devout  than  ourselves,  liiis 
is  sinking  through  lukewarm  ness,  and  out  of  it,  below  it 
Cold  people  are  mostly  indiscreet.  They  cannot  see  t  iat 
hesitation  is  not  discretion.  Only  conceive  hesitat  Ag 
with  God !  As  if  He  was  taking  us  the  wrong  road ! 
Oh  what  so  imprudent  as  this  prudence,  what  so  indiscreet 
as  this  discretion ! 

All  this  is  a  want  of  caution,  of  moderation,  and  of 
considerate,  foreseeing,  calculating  discretion.  And  this 
for  three  conclusive  reasons.  We  gain  nothing  b^  it. 
"We  inevitably  lose  much,  and  we  run  the  risk  of  losing 
everything.  Sometimes  how  rash  it  is  to  be  so  unsalfcly 
safe  !  And  how  fatal  is  that  moderation  which  leaves  us 
short  of  the  spot  where  God  is  waiting  for  us ! 

Thirdly,  I  must  say  a  few  words  of  the  share  discre- 
tion claims  in  the  method  of  our  actions.  Generally 
speaking,  discretion  may  be  resolved  into  obedience,  the 
not  worshipping  our  own  lights  nor  following  our  own 
wills.  A  very  eminent  spiritual  writer  simply  speaks  of 
the  two  virtues  as  if  they  were  one,  or  of  discretion  as  if 
it  were  but  a  function  of  obedience.  Speaking  howevei 
in  detail,  discretion  of  manner  consists  in  five  things  which 
I  will  state  as  briefly  as  possible,  in  order  that  they  may 
be  the  more  readily  impressed  upon  the  memory. 

Discretion  acts  slowly  and  after  prayer,  doubts  im- 
pulses, and  takes  counsel. 

Discretion  does  little,  one  thing  at  a  time,  calculates 
its  own  strength,  perseveres  in  its  little,  is  on  the  look  out 
to  add,  and  prognosticates  nothing. 


DISCRETION.  493 

Discretion  does  its  work  very  carefully,  attends  to  the 
circumstances  of  its  actions,  and  never  pulls  them  to 
pieces  again  when  it  has  once  made  them  up. 

Discretion  gently  forces  itself  to  its  work,  and  insists 
on  an  interior  spirit,  pure  motives,  and  the  practice  of 
God's  presence. 

Discretion  does  all  its  work  for  God  supremely,  as  a 
man's  chief  work  and  indeed  only  great  work,  appreciates 
its  importance,  estimates  its  difficulty,  and  is  not  hopeful 
but  sure  of  its  results 

What  is  not  discretion  then,  but  the  most  temerarious 
indiscretion,  is  to  be  afraid  of  God  and  of  holiness,  to 
wish  to  stand  well  with  the  world,  to  be  in  a  visible 
mean,  that  is  a  mean  every  one  can  see  and  praise,  be- 
tween extremes,  to  fear  committing  ourselves  with  God, 
to  be  frightened  ot  ui\.l-aju.&>  wnen  we  know  that  we 
are  really  not  at  all  drawn  to  it,  as  a  rule  rather  to  give 
God  a  little  less  than  His  due  than  a  little  more,  for 
safety's  sake.  Now  look  at  the  beautiful  contradiction 
of  all  this  in  St.  Joseph's  life,  so  tried  and  chequered, 
with  gravest  doubts,  and  dreams,  and  changes,  as  if  ho 
were  set  to  be  the  sport  of  all  the  unlikelihoods  of  grace 
and  of  all  the  perplexing  unearthly  ways  of  God  :  and 
how  quiet,  how  docile,  how  all  for  God,  how  interior,  how 
never  looking  before  light  and  grace  given,  how  childlike 
and  prompt  the  moment  it  came  !  And  what  was  the 
end  of  it  all  ?  Like  St.  John,  but  before  him,  he  lies  at 
last  on  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus,  and  discretion  dies  of 
love! 


Kin<?  Reader  I  I  can  sav  no  more  to  help  you  in  your 
42 


494  DISCRETION. 

growth  in  holiness.  May  God  give  you  grace  now  ;pu 
have  finished  the  book  to  forget  all  that  may  be  theory  of 
mine,  and  to  remember  only  the  wisdom  and  the  practice 
of  His  saints !  And  in  charity  breathe  one  aspiration  to 
the  inexhaustible  compassion  of  the  Most  High,  that  he 
who  has  ventured  to  preach  to  others  may  not  himself  be 
?a*t  away. 


TH1P   PfJV. 


RETURN  TO  the  circulation  desk  ot  any 
University  of  California  Library 
or  to  the 
NORTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 
Bldg.  400,  Richmond  Field  Station 
University  of  California 
Richmond,  CA  94804-4698 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

•  2-month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling 
(510)642-6753 

•  1-year  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing 
books  to  NRLF 

•  Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4 
days  prior  to  due  date. 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 

JAN  1  5  2000 


h 


- 


12,000(11/95) 


U.  C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


ccmb7aflfl^o 


M41960  ^X23S0 

Fa 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


